Drug drama

It’s a case of withdrawal of a different sort: at the end of this month, one of the most-abused prescription painkillers on the market is going out of production.

Oxycontin, once touted as a timed-release

opioid painkiller able to address chronic pain outside a hospital setting — and later disparaged for its rampant abuse, with such monikers as “hillbilly heroin” — has finally had its day. Its manufacturers in Canada, Purdue Pharma Canada, plan to replace it with OxyNeo, a new formulation of the drug that will be harder to crush, and, the manufacturers hope, harder to abuse.

Other provinces are also taking the changeover as an opportunity to tighten the rules on drug coverage, even for the new form of the opiate. Both Nova Scotia and Ontario have already made it much harder for the drug to be obtained through provincial drug coverage — and the other Atlantic provinces are reported to be following suit.

The changeover is not expected to affect ordinary users who are prescribed the drug.

Here’s what Health Canada spokesperson Leslie Meerburg told the Toronto Star: “There is little concern of withdrawal for clients switching therapy from Oxycontin to OxyNeo when taken as prescribed by a physician. … However, it is possible that some clients who obtained Oxycontin through other sources may go into withdrawal when Oxycontin is removed from the Canadian market and they are unable to find another source of supply.

“This is a concern for any individual who obtains and uses Oxycontin outside of appropriate medical indications.”

Why, you might think, should anyone lose sleep over the trials and travails of those who choose to abuse the drug?

Well, perhaps because, as an abused prescription drug, even in this province, Oxycontin makes regular appearances in the courts. Not just in drug importation and sales cases, either, although it does crop up there. It’s been a player in double-doctoring charges, defendants have cited addictions to the drug as the reason behind break-ins, particularly in pharmacies, and there have even been cases of private homes being broken into specifically to obtain the drug.

When Oxycontin vanishes, there will be a significant number of abusers facing serious withdrawal, and it’s already pretty clear that this province’s methadone program — meant to help opiate addicts withdraw from their addictions — is pretty much over-subscribed.

You may consider addicts to be the architects of their own misfortune — there are plenty, though, who will tell you that Oxycontin is particularly unforgiving, and that the barest minimum of experimentation can have near-permanent results.

Any way you look at it, the end of this month will mean the end of the source of supply of a drug with major abuse problems — and the start of seriously desperate times for its abusers.

Other jurisdictions, for example, have see rapid increases in heroin addiction as Oxycontin disappears.

Desperate times often lead to desperate solutions — and desperate solutions often end up involving innocent bystanders.