In yesterday’s newspaper, they made a refference as Oxycotin is “hillbillie herione”
Now for those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about this drug which has been out for about a year or two, is great for terminally ill patients who need to be pain free 24hrs a day. Although poor Grandma and Grandpa can’t afford to pay their bills so they turn around and sell their pills. (40mg pill sells for 40 to 50 bucks)
Also people are getting it other ways too.
Anyways, this has become a really big problem here in the appalachian area. I was wondering:
1–How big of a problem is “Hillbillie heroine” where you live?
2–And, what do you think we should do about the problem?
Remembering that the patients who need this drug, depend upon it to make their lives bearable and to live pain free.
I myself feel like their is nothing we can do, seeing as there are always loop holes people will find to get this drug even if it means stealing it from the elderly. (Which is the reason that prompted me to posting this)
i have school from 8am to noon, but if anyone has questions about this pain killiers, post and I’ll respond ASAP.
OxyContin is called the white-collar heroin, also. It is very expensive medication, and gives the abuser the same feeling as a dose of heroin. It does this because it is opiate based, as is heroin. I worked in a retail pharmacy for 8 years, and when OxyContin came out, all the users came out of the woodworks. They have not had any kind of arrests here for it, but since I worked in a fairly busy pharmacy, we saw a lot of people getting it.
The sad part was that you knew certain people had problems, and they would come in to get meds for Granny, but you had to wonder if probably half the medication even got home. But there’s not much you can do, aside from telling the person that you don’t have it in stock. (Which just means that you know they’ll go right down the street to the next pharmacy.)
As far as making sure the people that need it get it, there’s not much you can do. Some people take it for pain, and then are able to function on a normal level. But restricting it to being dispensed by a nurse may help, although I’m pretty sure that it’s not really feasible. (If patients can’t afford to pay for the medication, who can say that they should have to be able to pay a nurse to dispense it?) I’m pretty sure after a couple of years of people getting busted for possesion of this drug that it will be pulled from the market. The drug company will just have to find a way to develop it without all the side effects, or cut it from the product line completely.
There’s an article on the net, found here about this, in case anyone would like to read about it firsthand.
I am not much into the drug culture, or circles so I couldn’t say if this is a problem where I live or not. According to the article, the drug company, Perdue Parma, has stopped shipping 160 mg pills and is offering tamper resistant prescription pads to doctors.
At the hospital, oxycodone is used for post-op pain, and it seems a very good drug. People can abuse anything. I would hate to see this oral med taken off the market because people crush and snort it—even if it was in a liquid suspension, people would find a way to abuse it.
I haven’t heard about it’s being marketed or targeted specifically in my part of California.
My husband had knee surgery a couple years ago and thye gave him a real big bottle of Oxycodone for pain.
He didn’t use much of it, and I found that it works wonders on migraines. (I took it in pill form, though, not snorting it.)
Wish I could get some more. I know I probably sound like an addict, but it really works on those damn migraines that nothing else touches.
Around here we’ve had at least three cases of armed robbery of pharmacies for oxycontin. My mother has a prescription and we’ve joked about selling it on the street.
I live in Appalachia, Southwest Virginia to be exact. There is a bigger problem here with O.C.'s than there has ever been with any drug. You wouldn’t believe how many people are addicted to it. Nearly every day there is another death by O.D. in the newspaper, and people here are always talking about it. A group of lawyers matched with a bunch of yokels who claim terrible losses or pain caused by Oxy is pulling together a multi-million dollar lawsuit against some local doctors for over-prescribing it. Many people are calling for a stop to its maufacture. The producer of the drug, Perdue Pharma, has worked actively with law enforcement (trying to keep themselves out of court is what I’ve heard around here), even going so far as to make look-alike placebos that cops have used in busts.
Personally, I don’t think Perdue should be required to stop making Oxy. I think it can really inprove the lives of people who need it. Tighter restrictions aren’t going to help either, as far as I’m concerned. People who are addicted to it will do whatever it takes to jack that shit up their arms. I have known a lot of people who’ve had problems with it, and though I’m not saying it can’t be done, I’ve never heard of anyone who’s become addicted (personally, mind you; read what you like in the newspaper) who’s kicked it. Several people who have had lots of experience with both have told me that heroin is less addictive. I don’t have an answer as to what should be done about it, but it’s all we hear about in this area anymore.
*Some of what I said in the first paragraph may be some of the same things in the link that’s posted. I’m on my clunker computer at work, and can’t get it to work, so I haven’t read it. It may be the same AP piece that ran in yesterday’s edition of our town paper. Please forgive the redundancy if that’s the case.
I took oxycontin just before and after I had back surgery. I was in so much pain that even with meds I could only function for an hour or two each day. The really great thing about oxycontin is that it last for six to eight hours, rather than four hours like oxycodone. (That’s where they got the -contin part, I assume: it continues to work). That means that you can sleep through the night, and you don’t go through as many cycles of increasing pain/wait for meds to work/pain relief.
I’m not saying that it isn’t a drug with a lot of potential for abuse, clearly it is. Just, I was really glad to have it available when I needed it.
