Salon.com > OxyContin

Prescription pill epidemic has spiraled out of control

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 11:55:00 +0000

In the small coal towns of southern West Virginia, the poorest patch of Appalachia, the police blotters these days read like big-city tabloid fodder. Last month, a 23-year-old man received up to 25 years in prison for wheeling a quadriplegic to a house against his will, carrying him inside, beating him and stealing his prescription painkillers. That same week, a 25-year-old man was charged with child neglect resulting in death for taking three prescription painkillers and passing out, suffocating his one-month-old son in his arms. The child's 21-year-old mother was charged as an accomplice.

A couple of weeks ago, the manager of a pain clinic in the Mingo County seat of Williamson (nickname “Pilliamson”) pleaded guilty to “reluctantly selling drug prescriptions illegally”--abetting doctors in writing scripts for thousands of prescription pill addicts. “Patients” would line up at the clinic before it opened, like bargain shoppers at a Black Friday Christmas sale. And now, as the nation knows, the Mingo County sheriff is dead, shot at point-blank range as he sat in his car eating a sandwich.

Getting prescription meds right

Mon, 18 Feb 2013 16:00:00 +0000

The media seems to have three modes of action when it comes to psychoactive drugs: intense promotion of advances and benefits; general disregard; and full-on panic about negative effects, including potential for misuse and addiction. During both the benefits and the risks periods, many myths and misinformation are disseminated. But between these bouts of euphoria and panic, there is little coverage at all, especially of addiction. This up/down/off pattern does a disservice not only to people suffering from addiction, but to those with other diseases as well.

Right now, we seem to be moving from a period characterized mainly by disinterest into one of attention and fear. Though we’ve never returned to the peak freak-out of the late ‘80s and early ‘90s—in 1989, a Gallup poll found that Americans viewed drugs as the number one problem threatening the nation, eclipsing even the economy during a recession—we have seen brief but blinding spotlights on Oxycontin, methamphetamine and now prescription drugs more generally.

Is marijuana close to being legalized?

Mon, 15 Oct 2012 16:47:00 +0000

Once again, medical-marijuana advocates are taking to the courts to eliminate the biggest barrier to legal use—the federal law that classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug with no valid medical use.

On Oct. 16, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the federal appeals court that usually handles cases involving government regulations, will hear oral arguments onAmericans for Safe Access v. DEA. It will be the first time in almost 20 years that federal courts have considered the science of medical marijuana, says ASA spokesperson Kris Hermes.

Specifically, ASA, a California-based patient-advocacy group, is trying to get the Drug Enforcement Administration to move marijuana out of Schedule I, the Controlled Substances Act of 1970s category for drugs with “a high potential for abuse,” “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” and no “accepted level of safety for use under medical supervision.” Heroin, LSD, and PCP are also in Schedule I. Cocaine, methamphetamine and OxyContin are in Schedule II, legal for medical use but strongly restricted.

Doctors and dealers battle for addicts

Wed, 22 Aug 2012 15:00:00 +0000

As a recovering drug addict, 23-year-old Joe has spent almost three years successfully managing his former oxycontin addiction with suboxone, a prescription medication that reduces cravings and withdrawal symptoms for drugs like heroin and prescription painkillers. He first began suboxone when he was in college and was able to receive free treatment and prescriptions. But since graduation, the cost of obtaining his treatment legally has become unaffordable, largely because of the American healthcare system.

“Recently, I paid $100 for 20 [dissolvable suboxone] strips. That will last me over a year,” said Joe, “Now, if I were to go to a doctor, it would cost $300 cash just to walk in and see the doctor for the first time. If you can use your insurance, you can get it a little cheaper, but a lot of insurances don’t cover it,” he said. Legally, each strip can cost a whopping $15 dollars without coverage.

A world of “hillbilly heroin”

Tue, 21 Aug 2012 18:00:00 +0000

During the two years Joe Sacco and I reported from the poorest pockets of the United States, areas that have been sacrificed before the altar of unfettered and unregulated capitalism, we found not only decayed and impoverished communities but shattered lives. There comes a moment when the pain and despair of constantly running into a huge wall, of realizing that there is no way out of poverty, crush human beings. Those who best managed to resist and bring some order to their lives almost always turned to religion and in that faith many found the power to resist and even rebel.

On the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation in South Dakota, where our book Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt opens, and where the average male has a life expectancy of 48 years, the lowest in the western hemisphere outside of Haiti, those who endured the long night of oppression found solace in traditional sweat lodge rituals, the Lakota language and cosmology, and the powerful four-day Sun Dance which I attended, where dancers fast and make small flesh offerings.