No trouble to find pills on the streets of Conception Bay North: parent

The mother of a 25-year-old Conception Bay North woman addicted to OxyContin figures local drug dealers are making a fortune.

"The OxyContin pills sell for anywhere from $20 to $40 a pill. Young people are crushing them, ingesting them, snorting or diluting in water and injecting them for a heroin-like high," says Kim (not her real name).

She contends there are least 50 young people in the area who are being treated with methadone for their OxyContin addiction.

When taken as prescribed, methadone is safe, but when methadone is taken by someone it is not prescribed for, it can be very dangerous.

"Some of the young people in the area who are being treated for their OxyContin addiction by methadone are selling their methadone to buy OxyContin," says Kim. "I'm not just speculating here. I've seen this with my own eyes and some of them have admitted it to me."

Kim considers methadone treatment to be a Band-Aid solution.

"People can be on it for years," she says. "All the addiction councillors I have spoken to over the past few months recommend detox for treating an OxyContin addiction. But unfortunately there are no centres in this area and very little help or treatment programs available in the province."

On the wrong track

Kim feels the police are often missing the target when it comes to drug busts.

"They're taking marijuana, a recreational drug, off the street and not catching the pill-pushers. I know who the dealers are around here, as do most other people. The dealers hang out in the same places all the time and could care less who knows they're selling. I'd rather my child smoke a joint every now and then than to be addicted to these pills, and there's a good many parents who would agree with me."

Kim says there is far more OxyContin being sold in the area than marijuana.

"Many people have told me they've driven all around the bay and couldn't buy a joint anywhere, but couldn't count the times they were offered OxyContin, Percocets and Ritalin pills or cocaine and crack."

Kim said her daughter's OxyContin addiction has made her realize just how serious the drug problem is across the province.

"I've been speaking to numerous councillors in addiction centres from British Columbia to Nova Scotia, and as soon I mention I have a daughter who is addicted to OxyContin, their response is, 'Oh, you're from Newfoundland,' because that's where most of their OxyContin addicts are from."