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.

Are you tired of reading explanations -- such as changing interest rates, profit growth, Yen carry trade -- about what makes the market move? Well then you're in luck because Reuters reports that this market is moving on drugs. That's right. According to Harris Stratyner, a psychologist at Caron's New York Recovery Center, some executives he treats are experimenting with cocaine, opiate-based drugs, Ecstasy and marijuana. Drugs don't make stock prices go up but they fuel the bankers who run it.

And these bankers are making big bucks. Six of the largest U.S. investment banks - Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (NYSE: GS), Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. (NYSE: LEH), Citigroup Inc. (NYSE: C), JPMorgan & Chase Co. (NYSE: JPM), Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS) and The Bear Stearns Companies (NYSE: BSC) - combined for $17.6 billion in first-quarter profit this year. That's after paying out $28.8 billion for pay and benefits.Those profit and pay figures are more than double those seen in the first quarter of 2000, the last days before the dot-com bubble burst.

It's not as if the banks don't know what's going on. One hiring manager at a major New York bank told Reuters that new staff must take a urine test, which is typical for the industry. But he said new hires can choose when to schedule the test during a 45-day period before their start date."Our drug test is not so much a test of whether you actually take drugs as it is an intelligence test to see if you can figure out how long it takes to get traces of the drug out of your system." .