http://www.buffalo.edu/news/fast-execute.cgi/article-page.html?article=52940009
Release date: Thursday, August 2,
2001
BUFFALO, N.Y. -- OxyContin, one of
the newest drugs prescribed for pain, has become a destructive drug of
abuse among recreational drug users obtaining it illegally.
In its time-release pill form, OxyContin
is safe taken as prescribed. When abusers crush the pill and sniff the
powder, they defeat its time-release function. In this form, the opiod
drug is highly addictive.
Jeffrey Lackner, Ph.D., a pain specialist
at the University at Buffalo, warns that the potential for abuse also is
high among patients receiving the drug legitimately if they are not monitored
closely by their physicians.
"Unfortunately, narcotics for chronic
pain are -- literally and figuratively -- a prescription for disaster if
the physician neglects to consider abuse potential, history of self-medication,
and other behavioral and psychological factors which bear on the trajectory
of pain states," Lackner says.
"By the same token, patients who
see 'oxy' as a 'cure' for an incurable problem without enhancing self-care
skills can be a problem. This is particularly true with anxious pain patients
who often misinterpret negative emotions for pain and ratchet up their
use of drugs.
"The push to prescribe OxyContin
started with cancer pain, but has led to misuse and misprescription of
'oxy' for benign pain," Lackner said.
Contact: Lois Baker, ljbaker@buffalo.edu
Phone: 716-645-5000 ext 1417
Fax: 716-645-3765