When Purdue Pharma introduced its pain killer OxyContin to the market back in 1997 the drug was hailed as a savior for seriously ill patients. Unfortunately, what makes the drug so effective also makes it highly addictive, and easily abused. Purdue Pharma has taken steps recently to help prevent abuse, and today the FDA announced that the changes do offer some "limited" advantages over the original pill.The drug is definitely effective when used properly by severely ill patients dealing with intense pain. It was designed to give patients a steady does of the pain killer over a 12-hour period.
As with any drug, someone is always going to look to abuse the pain killing effects. Drug abusers quickly figured out that by crushing the pills they could get quicker effects by snorting or even injecting the pain killer. Being that OxyContin is an opiate, its effects have been compared to those achieved by using heroin. The drug's effects have garnered it the nickname "Hillbilly Heroin".
Purdue Pharma's new changes are aimed at preventing this sort of abuse.
The company has changed its design of the pills to include a plastic like coating which it believes will prevent users from crushing the tablets, or at least make it more difficult to do so. It is definitely a move in the right direction, but it is hard to believe that this will stop users that have already developed a taste for the drug. Hopefully it will prevent new users from developing such a habit, though.
Originally Purdue Pharma had intended to use the plastic coating just on its lower dosage pills, but now it aims to include the tamperproofing on all doses of the pain killer.
While it is certain that people will continue to abuse the drug, at least the company is trying to help curb the abuse that has become so widespread.
Of course, there is the other side of the coin: normal everyday people that develop an addiction to the drug. While it is encouraging what steps are being taken to avoid tampering abuse with the drug, there are still plenty of patients out there that will develop an addiction simply by using the drug as it is prescribed to them by their doctors. These changes will not reduce the chances of these such people developing an addiction... the responsibility for that lies with the doctors that prescribe the drugs to do so in a responsible manner and help educate their patients on the addictive properties of the drug.
Prescription drug abuse is a big problem in America. A study conducted in 2007 showed that around 5.2 million Americans reported using prescription pain killers in an inappropriate manner. Surely that number is much higher now, and the majority of these people did not start off buying their pills on the street, but instead were handed a bottle by their local pharmacist.
If the new tamperproof pills can prevent just one more person from overdosing, or developing a worse drug addiction than they already have, then this is definitely a good move for Purdue Pharma.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
9-22-2009 @ 4:24PM
Marianne Skolek said...
Purdue Pharma has a tamper resistent patent in J. David Haddox's name -- the gatekeeper of Purdue Pharma. They chose not to manufacture the drug years ago utilizing this patent. In doing so, they could have saved scores of lives to death and addiction. Purdue Pharma and all the redesigns of OxyContin will not change the fact that they are convicted felons. I wouldn't buy a used car from them -- hopefully the FDA won't buy a reformulated OxyContin from them either.
Marianne Skolek
National Activist for Victims of OxyContin and
Purdue Pharma, a convicted pharmaceutical company
9-22-2009 @ 5:05PM
xdfgf said...
OH NOES! Now I have to chew it up instead of grinding it up to snort! What so ever shall I do???