Oxycodone - Usage Trends

Usage Trends

Shortly after its introduction into the prescription market in the mid-1990s, OxyContin became one of the most popular medications for moderate to severe pain. By 2001 it was the nation's top-selling prescription pain reliever, according to the GAO report. More than 7 million prescriptions were being written for the drug each year. This success provided 90 percent of Purdue Pharma's sales income for the year 2002. The drug was being marketed not only to cancer, arthritis, and back pain patients, but also to those with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), people injured in automobile crashes or sporting events, and people with many kinds of moderate pain.

Due to two break-ins in two weeks, the owners of this pharmacy in Kentucky added several security devices, including a glass partition and steel vault. The rise of prescription drug abuse, especially of painkillers like OxyContin, has made phar
Due to two break-ins in two weeks, the owners of this pharmacy in Kentucky added several security devices, including a glass partition and steel vault. The rise of prescription drug abuse, especially of painkillers like OxyContin, has made pharmacies a target for drug theft. AP/Wide World Photos.

Abuse on the Rise

Beginning in the rural areas of Appalachia, law enforcement officers saw OxyContin falling into illegal use. Some sources claim that the Appalachian region has physically difficult jobs in coal mining and timber production. Thus, many people there need pain pills. Some of the area's people are also poor. Some patients discovered that they could get a prescription for OxyContin at a cost of two to four dollars per pill and then sell the drug illegally for as much as forty dollars per pill. Theft of prescriptions from homes, and theft of OxyContin from pharmacies, followed.

Illegal use of OxyContin only accounts for a small percentage of its users, however. Doctors prescribe the vast majority of the medicine to people who report pain. Of course, some doctors are dishonest, and some patients are not honest either. Some patients "doctor shop," moving from one doctor to another, reporting the same symptoms, and getting prescriptions from each doctor. A number of doctors have been arrested and jailed for writing too many prescriptions for narcotics such as OxyContin. Sometimes thieves steal prescription pads and write their own orders for drugs.

According to the Monitoring the Future survey, OxyContin abuse is now widespread throughout the United States, and it is growing. The report noted that 5 percent of twelfth graders, 3.5 percent of tenth graders, and 1.7 percent of eighth graders had used OxyContin at least once in 2003. A 2004 Newsweek story declared that illegal OxyContin use had spread to twenty-three states, including areas of New England, the Mid-Atlantic, the Southeast, Ohio, and Alaska. The hardesthit state is Kentucky.

In 2005, the Partnership for a Drug-Free America released the results of its study on teens and substance abuse. The survey found that teens were increasingly abusing prescription drugs such as OxyContin, Vicodin, Ritalin, and Adderall (see chart). As a result of this trend, youth were called "Generation Rx." However, oxycodone is not just abused by teens. Use of the drug reaches all segments of society—young and old, rich and poor, males and females. In 2003, the Orlando Sentinel reported that most of the deaths in Florida from oxycodone "were middle-age white men." As such, the drug's nickname "hillybilly heroin" is misleading.

New trends in substance abuse, 2004 SOURCE: Table 2, Generation Rx: National Study Reveals New Category of Substance Abuse Emerging: Teens Abusing Rx and OTC Medications Intentionally to Get High, The Partnership for a Drug-Free America Web sit
New trends in substance abuse, 2004
SOURCE: Table 2, "Generation Rx: National Study Reveals New Category of Substance Abuse Emerging: Teens Abusing Rx and OTC Medications Intentionally to Get High," The Partnership for a Drug-Free America Web site, New York, NY [Online] http://www.drugfree.org/Portal/About/NewsReleases/Generation_Rx_Teens_Abusing_Rx_and_OTC_Medications [accessed May 25, 2005].
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