Opioid receptors are a group of G-protein coupled receptors with opioids as ligands. The endogenous opioids are dynorphins, enkephalins, endorphins, endomorphins and nociceptin. The opioid receptors are ~40% identical to somatostatin receptors (SSTRs).
Discovery
By the mid-1960s, it had become apparent from pharmacologic studies that opiate drugs were likely to exert their actions at specific receptor sites, and that there were likely to be multiple such sites.[1] The receptors were first identified as specific molecules through the use of binding studies, in which opiates that had been labeled with radioisotopes were found to bind to brain membrane homogenates. The first such study was published in 1971, using 3H-levorphanol.[2] In 1973, Candace Pert and Solomon H. Snyder published the first detailed binding study of what would turn out to be the μ opioid receptor, using 3H-naloxone.[3] That study has been widely credited as the first definitive finding of an opioid receptor, although two other studies followed shortly after.[4][5]
[edit] Major subtypes
There are four major subtypes of opioid receptors:[6]
Receptor Subtypes Location[7] Function [7]
delta (δ)
OP1 (I) δ1, δ2
* Brain
o pontine nuclei
o amygdala
o olfactory bulbs
o deep cortex
* analgesia
* antidepressant effects
* physical dependence
kappa (κ)
OP2 (I) κ1, κ2, κ3
* Brain
o hypothalamus
o periaqueductal gray
o claustrum
* spinal cord
o substantia gelatinosa
* Spinal analgesia
* sedation
* miosis
* inhibition of ADH release
mu (μ)
OP3 (I) μ1, μ2, μ3
* Brain
o cortex (laminae III and IV)
o thalamus
o striosomes
o periaqueductal gray
* spinal cord
o substantia gelatinosa
* intestinal tract
μ1:
* Supraspinal analgesia
* physical dependence
μ2:
* respiratory depression
* miosis
* euphoria
* reduced GI motility
* physical dependence
μ3:
* ?
Nociceptin receptor
OP4 ORL1
* Brain
o cortex
o amygdala
o hippocampus
o septal nuclei
o habenula
o hypothalamus
* spinal cord
* anxiety
* depression
* appetite
* development of tolerance to μ agonists
(I). Name based on order of discovery
The receptors were named using the first letter of the first ligand that was found to bind to them. Morphine was the first chemical shown to bind to mu receptors. The first letter of the drug morphine is `m', but in biochemistry there is a tendency to use Greek letters, thus turning the 'm' to μ. Similarly a drug known as ketocyclazocine was first shown to attach itself to kappa receptors,[8] while the delta receptor was named after the mouse vas deferens tissue in which the receptor was first characterised.[9] An additional opioid receptor was later identified and cloned based on homology with the cDNA. This receptor is known as the nociceptin receptor or ORL 1 receptor.
The opioid receptor types are ~70% identical with differences located at N and C termini. The μ receptor (the μ represents morphine) is perhaps the most important. It is thought that the G protein binds to the third intracellular loop of the opioid receptors. Both in mice and humans the genes for the various receptor subtypes are located on different chromosomes.
Separate subtypes have been identified in human tissue. Research has so far failed to identify the genetic evidence of the subtypes, and it is thought that they arise from post-translational modification of cloned receptor types.[10]
An IUPHAR subcommittee[11][12] has recommended that appropriate terminology for the 3 classical (μ, δ, κ) receptors, and the non-classical (nociceptin) receptor, should be MOP, DOP, KOP and NOP respectively.
[edit] Additional receptors
Sigma receptors (σ) were once considered to be opioid receptors due to the antitussive actions of many opioid drugs being mediated via sigma receptors, and the first selective sigma agonists being derivatives of opioid drugs (e.g. allylnormetazocine), however sigma receptors were found to not be activated by endogenous opioid peptides, and are quite different from the other opioid receptors in both function and gene sequence, so they are now not usually classified with the opioid receptors.
The existence of further opioid receptors has also been suggested, due to pharmacological evidence of actions produced by endogenous opioid peptides but shown not to be mediated through any of the four known opioid receptor subtypes.[13][14][15] The only one of these additional receptors to have been definitively identified is the zeta (ζ) opioid receptor, which has been shown to be a cellular growth factor modulator with met-enkephalin being the endogenous ligand. This receptor is now most commonly referred to as the opioid growth factor receptor (OGFr).[16][17]
Another putative opioid receptor is the epsilon (ε) opioid receptor. The existence of this receptor was suspected after the endogenous opioid peptide beta-endorphin was shown to produce additional actions which did not seem to be mediated through any of the known opioid receptors.[18][19] Activation of this receptor produces strong analgesia and release of met-enkephalin, and a number of widely used opioid antagonists such as the μ antagonist etorphine and the κ antagonist bremazocine have been shown to act as antagonists for this effect (even in the presence of antagonists to their more well known targets),[20] while buprenorphine has been shown to act as an epsilon antagonist. Several selective antagonists and antagonists are now available for the putative epsilon receptor,[21][22] however efforts to locate a gene for this receptor have been unsuccessful, and epsilon-mediated effects were absent in μ/δ/κ "triple knockout" mice,[23] suggesting the epsilon receptor is likely to be either a splice variant derived from alternate post-translational modification, or a heteromer derived from hybridization of two or more of the known opioid receptors.
[edit] Pathology
Some forms of mutations in δ-opioid receptors have resulted in constant receptor activation.
Call us today to discuss how the V.I.P. Way can free you from your opiate dependency and get your life back. Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353 Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine. Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
We Are Able To Remove The Physical Opiates from Receptors, but if your on Suboxone, Heroin, & Methadone. Nobody can Remove them Honestly!...Because they are Opiates themselves & are Opiate antagonists, so you need to switch back to the Opiates you were taking before or the Doctor will write out a Prescription for a Fentanyl Patch for 3 weeks before detox takes place.
Get The Help You Need & Take Control of Your Life again, do it Right THE 1st Time. 8 Hours of Rapid Detox, no Foley Catheter, V.I.P. all the way through it. We take the 8 days of Withdrawals in 8hrs. While You Sleep Comfortably.
After-Care/Post op, You Are With the Chief of Staff Nurse, 1 on 1. Have a Choice of Rapid Detox, then go Back to Hotel to Rest With Nurse for Comfort, Meds, Education, Mimimal Exercise & Emotional Support. Or Go to our Solutions Recovery Center for Narcotics Anonymous, the Emotional Part, but you have the Choice. If you want to see you're own Psychiatrist, Counselor, Medical Social Worker, or Doctor of your Choice when you get back home, it's OK.
You're Hotel Stay With The Nurse is Included. No Problem because some Patient's Feel Anxiety Seeing Other People or Paranoid, Blurred Vision Extreme Exhaution & Meds are given to help Keep you Comfortable & allowing you to Socialize Slowly.
In all, We Just Try To Get The Physical & Emotional Re-Hab in 1 Stop. But it's not needed if you are out of town, and anyway they charge $500 a day for a Shared Bedroom Room/Shower & You Go Have To Group Therapy and no meds are given what so ever. Most Insurances May Cover, but unlikely. It's a 12 Step Program Re-Hab After Detox, in My Opinion it's like 2 detoxes. I know i Wouldn't Want To Go to 2 Detoxes, Meetings, Shared Rooms Etc...but you need to inform Dr Yee about your decision on if you want to go to Solution's Recovery or to stay in a Hotel with a Nurse That Can Call MD about any Changes in Your Condition. You Also Have Meds for Comfort, but non Narcotic so you don't have to worry about getting Addicted to them. You Can Just Go Home, Vacation, or Go Back To Work After a Week of Rapid Detox With Hotel Stay included.
So, In All It's Your Choice, Get Your Life Back for the New Year or for yourself & Family.
Rapid Detox Really Works Our Way, Because of the 8 Hours of Taking the Opiates out, takes that Long, because Opiates are also stored in you're Fat Cells. So No way, any other can offer what we can at the Price & V.I.P. Treatment. Trust!...Not Marketing, Just Educating. No Fancy Website, Dr Yee Answers all Calls, instead of a Marketer Promising to Get All Addictions Out???...Mission Impossible...
Here, an interesting Read on the Doctors Perspective that He Wrote:
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Sunday, October 18, 2009
Dangerous mix: Teens finding new uses for parents' prescription pills with 'pharm parties'
By The Flint Journal
October 18, 2009, 6:00AM
pharm_parties. Prescription drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin have surpassed marijuana as the new gateway drugs for teens.Flint Journal file photo
GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan — There’s a party going on in the family medicine cabinet. Unsuspecting parents are the host. The guest list is their own teenage son or daughter’s friends.
Welcome to the “pharm party” — a dangerous new trend that experts warn is growing fast among suburban teens and is helping to turn prescription medication into the No. 1 gateway drug.
“The pharm parties are absolutely elements of abuse,” said Dr. Mark Menestrina, medical director for Brighton Hospital’s detoxification unit. “(Teens) just get meds from their parents medicine cabinet and throw them in a candy dish. Kids just take pills from the candy dish (and) eat them.”
And, the dangers are very real.
“I OD’ed,” said a 17-year-old Shiawassee Township girl who asked not to be identified. “They were my grandma’s antidepressants. I don’t know what they were called, but I took a whole bunch and ended up in the hospital. It wasn’t the first time I took them, but it was the last.”
Since then, the girl said she’s heard about plans for local pharm parties with drugs such as the pain killer Vicodin, anxiety medication Xanax and the muscle relaxant Flexeril on the menu — all of which are readily available in lots of home medicine cabinets.
“We’re finding more and more kids with prescription drugs,” said Clio Police Chief James McLellan, who doesn’t think his community is as bad as others although he’s definitely seeing an increase.
Clio formed a task force and in May hosted a health fair to collect unused and expired medication. They got $5,000 worth of meds — the most commonly turned in was Vicodin.
The Clio School District this month also hosted a town hall meeting to inform parents and the community about the issue; 20 people attended.
“Anecdotally, you see it in the paper and you hear about it in school districts,” said Genesee Community Mental Health’s Manager of Substance Abuse Prevention Lisa Coleman. “We’re hearing about these things happening all throughout Genesee County, not just one particular area.”
• Last October, a Flushing High School student was rushed from school to the hospital when he randomly ate three pills he acquired from another student who police said had stolen them from his brother who was being treated for brain cancer.
The pills were beta blockers typically prescribed for high blood pressure. The drugs caused the student’s blood pressure to dip down to 30 beats per minute.
• In Clio last summer, a teen was caught selling random pills out of his backpack at a park.
• In 2003, a Swartz Creek student stole about 30 of his father’s Seroquel pills, an antipsychotic, and sold them to students at school. Two students passed out and were taken to the hospital after ingesting the drug.
Teens often plan pharm parties well ahead of time, stockpiling prescription drugs raided from the family medicine cabinet. When they get to the party, all the drugs are thrown in a bowl, called “trail mix.”
The pills sometimes are consumed by the handful and often washed down with alcohol.
The goal is to gobble up as many different types of prescription medicines as possible. Typically, teens don’t even know what they’re taking or mixing and what the side effects could be.
“We have had a couple overdose cases where kids took something and had no idea what it was,” said Swartz Creek Police Chief Rick Clolinger.
Clolinger said the thing that irked him most was that these kids just randomly took such drugs.
“Why would anyone want to ingest something when they have no clue what it is?” he asked.
Just how bad is the problem in Genesee County? No one’s really sure.
One of the major assessors of student drug abuse locally is the Coordinated Community Student Survey, an annual survey conducted by Genesee Community Mental Health and Michigan State University. Currently, the questionnaire only polls student’s drug use for marijuana, inhalants and street drugs.
In the future, Coleman said they plan to include questions specifically about prescription drugs.
A December study funded by the National Institute on Drug Use found that while traditional street drugs such as cocaine, crack and meth showed a marked decline in use among teens — prescription drug abuse remains at or near peak levels.
Meanwhile, even teens say families can help their kids avoid learning the hard way about prescription drug abuse, simply by locking medicine cabinets and talking to their kids.
Menestrina worries that teens aren’t aware of the dangers of eating these drugs, let alone mixing them.
“They have no idea what the pills are in many instances. Because it’s a pharmaceutical, their perceived risk is less. ... They think: It’s approved by the FDA, so it’s OK.”
Because of this misconception, a lot of teens turn to these drugs as the easiest way to get high.
“For years marijuana was known as the gateway drug. It was the No. 1 illicit substance that a young person was most likely to use first,” said Menestrina. “For the last four years now, it has been passed by prescription medications. The new gateway drug for many young people is prescription medication.”
Pharm Lingo
Big boys, cotton, kicker: Various slang for prescription pain relievers.
Chill pills, french fries, tranqs: Various slang for prescription sedatives and tranquilizers.
Pharming (pronounced “farming”): From the word pharmaceutical. It means kids getting high by raiding their parents’ medicine cabinets for prescription drugs.
Pharm parties: Parties where teens bring prescription drugs from home, mix them together into a big bowl (see ‘trail mix’), and grab a handful. Not surprisingly, pharm parties are usually arranged while parents are out.
Pilz (pronounced pills): A popular term used to describe prescription medications. Can also include over-the-counter medications.
Recipe: Prescription drugs mixed with alcoholic or other beverages.
Trail mix: A mixture of various prescription drugs, usually served in a big bag or bowl at pharm parties.
Source: Partnership for a Drugfree America
Where to get help:
RAPID DETOX LAS VEGAS
(800) 276-7021
October 18, 2009, 6:00AM
pharm_parties. Prescription drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin have surpassed marijuana as the new gateway drugs for teens.Flint Journal file photo
GENESEE COUNTY, Michigan — There’s a party going on in the family medicine cabinet. Unsuspecting parents are the host. The guest list is their own teenage son or daughter’s friends.
Welcome to the “pharm party” — a dangerous new trend that experts warn is growing fast among suburban teens and is helping to turn prescription medication into the No. 1 gateway drug.
“The pharm parties are absolutely elements of abuse,” said Dr. Mark Menestrina, medical director for Brighton Hospital’s detoxification unit. “(Teens) just get meds from their parents medicine cabinet and throw them in a candy dish. Kids just take pills from the candy dish (and) eat them.”
And, the dangers are very real.
“I OD’ed,” said a 17-year-old Shiawassee Township girl who asked not to be identified. “They were my grandma’s antidepressants. I don’t know what they were called, but I took a whole bunch and ended up in the hospital. It wasn’t the first time I took them, but it was the last.”
Since then, the girl said she’s heard about plans for local pharm parties with drugs such as the pain killer Vicodin, anxiety medication Xanax and the muscle relaxant Flexeril on the menu — all of which are readily available in lots of home medicine cabinets.
“We’re finding more and more kids with prescription drugs,” said Clio Police Chief James McLellan, who doesn’t think his community is as bad as others although he’s definitely seeing an increase.
Clio formed a task force and in May hosted a health fair to collect unused and expired medication. They got $5,000 worth of meds — the most commonly turned in was Vicodin.
The Clio School District this month also hosted a town hall meeting to inform parents and the community about the issue; 20 people attended.
“Anecdotally, you see it in the paper and you hear about it in school districts,” said Genesee Community Mental Health’s Manager of Substance Abuse Prevention Lisa Coleman. “We’re hearing about these things happening all throughout Genesee County, not just one particular area.”
• Last October, a Flushing High School student was rushed from school to the hospital when he randomly ate three pills he acquired from another student who police said had stolen them from his brother who was being treated for brain cancer.
The pills were beta blockers typically prescribed for high blood pressure. The drugs caused the student’s blood pressure to dip down to 30 beats per minute.
• In Clio last summer, a teen was caught selling random pills out of his backpack at a park.
• In 2003, a Swartz Creek student stole about 30 of his father’s Seroquel pills, an antipsychotic, and sold them to students at school. Two students passed out and were taken to the hospital after ingesting the drug.
Teens often plan pharm parties well ahead of time, stockpiling prescription drugs raided from the family medicine cabinet. When they get to the party, all the drugs are thrown in a bowl, called “trail mix.”
The pills sometimes are consumed by the handful and often washed down with alcohol.
The goal is to gobble up as many different types of prescription medicines as possible. Typically, teens don’t even know what they’re taking or mixing and what the side effects could be.
“We have had a couple overdose cases where kids took something and had no idea what it was,” said Swartz Creek Police Chief Rick Clolinger.
Clolinger said the thing that irked him most was that these kids just randomly took such drugs.
“Why would anyone want to ingest something when they have no clue what it is?” he asked.
Just how bad is the problem in Genesee County? No one’s really sure.
One of the major assessors of student drug abuse locally is the Coordinated Community Student Survey, an annual survey conducted by Genesee Community Mental Health and Michigan State University. Currently, the questionnaire only polls student’s drug use for marijuana, inhalants and street drugs.
In the future, Coleman said they plan to include questions specifically about prescription drugs.
A December study funded by the National Institute on Drug Use found that while traditional street drugs such as cocaine, crack and meth showed a marked decline in use among teens — prescription drug abuse remains at or near peak levels.
Meanwhile, even teens say families can help their kids avoid learning the hard way about prescription drug abuse, simply by locking medicine cabinets and talking to their kids.
Menestrina worries that teens aren’t aware of the dangers of eating these drugs, let alone mixing them.
“They have no idea what the pills are in many instances. Because it’s a pharmaceutical, their perceived risk is less. ... They think: It’s approved by the FDA, so it’s OK.”
Because of this misconception, a lot of teens turn to these drugs as the easiest way to get high.
“For years marijuana was known as the gateway drug. It was the No. 1 illicit substance that a young person was most likely to use first,” said Menestrina. “For the last four years now, it has been passed by prescription medications. The new gateway drug for many young people is prescription medication.”
Pharm Lingo
Big boys, cotton, kicker: Various slang for prescription pain relievers.
Chill pills, french fries, tranqs: Various slang for prescription sedatives and tranquilizers.
Pharming (pronounced “farming”): From the word pharmaceutical. It means kids getting high by raiding their parents’ medicine cabinets for prescription drugs.
Pharm parties: Parties where teens bring prescription drugs from home, mix them together into a big bowl (see ‘trail mix’), and grab a handful. Not surprisingly, pharm parties are usually arranged while parents are out.
Pilz (pronounced pills): A popular term used to describe prescription medications. Can also include over-the-counter medications.
Recipe: Prescription drugs mixed with alcoholic or other beverages.
Trail mix: A mixture of various prescription drugs, usually served in a big bag or bowl at pharm parties.
Source: Partnership for a Drugfree America
Where to get help:
RAPID DETOX LAS VEGAS
(800) 276-7021
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Hillbilly Heroin: The story of Jon Riley Hays, M.D
Hillbilly Heroin: The story of Jon Riley Hays, M.D
Belleville News-Democrat
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
* Oxycontin
* Oxycontin Addiction
* Oxycontin Detox
* Oxycontin Treatment
* Oxycontin Testimonials
* Oxycoontin Withdrawals
* Contact Us
The desire for the high that only opiates can give has turned a prescription painkiller into the illicit drug of choice for many Americans.
By Mike Fitgerald
Only an addict can describe the euphoria that comes from that first outlaw hit of Oxycontin.
Only an addict can describe the sheer torture of trying to quit the narcotic painkiller known as "Hillbilly Heroin."
Jon Riley Hays, M.D., knows about both.
Hays, formerly a family practice physician in the Southern Illinois town of Herrin, first took Oxycontin three years ago when a patient turned in a bottle containing some leftover pills.
Hays, 42, at the time had been suffering excruciating back pain from a car accident, preventing a decent night of sleep. The much weaker painkillers he had been given weren't doing the trick.
Hays knew that ingesting the Oxycontin was wrong. But he also believed the claims of sales representatives that Oxycontin is safe and nonaddictive.
Oxycontin: the addictive cycle begins
Within a few minutes of consuming that first Oxycontin tablet, Hays said, "I felt like Superman. I could work all day, be happy, go home, play with the kids. Do everything that I wanted to do.... I just felt like a million bucks."
The addiction advanced rapidly. Within six weeks, he was stealing Oxycontin from patients, crushing up the pills to mix in a saline solution, loading it into a hypodermic needle and plunging it into his arm. He also bought Oxycontin from local pharmacies under false names.
Trying to get out
Terrified of what he had fallen into, Hays tried to wean himself off Oxycontin on the weekends while keeping his addiction a secret from his wife and two small children. It was a prescription for utter misery.
"You're bedridden," Hays said. "Your bones feel like they're on fire and they're melting flesh."
The worst moment occurred when his daughter, who was 4 years old at the time, walked into the bathroom of his house just as he was about to shoot up some Oxycontin, Hays said.
"Her eyes get very big, of course," Hays recalled. "And she asks me, `Dad, what are you doing?'"
Hays shut his eyes for a moment.
"Addicts are very clever people --- clever to get it, clever with excuses," he said. "I said, `Dad's sick and he's giving himself a shot of vitamins.'"
Eventually, through professional treatment, Hays got off Oxycontin. But not before the Drug Enforcement Administration caught up with him. In May 2002, a judge in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis sentenced Hays to 51 months in federal prison for stealing the drug.
The consequences
Today Hays --- once a student brilliant enough to earn full-ride scholarships to the University of Illinois and the university's college of medicine, a man whose lifelong ambition was to be a small town doctor --- is an inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion.
A few weeks before he entered prison, in early July 2002, Hays sat down with a Belleville News-Democrat reporter to recount his path to and from Oxycontin.
"Just because you're a physician, you don't automatically become immune to addiction," Hays said. "Maybe you're a little more highly educated. But! as in my case, yeah, I knew I was addicted. I knew the warning signs for everything, but it didn't prevent it."
Hays met the reporter at a restaurant in Herrin owned by his nephew. Hays was working at the restaurant as a busboy --- the only job he could find after losing his state medical license.
The former physician sat outside the restaurant on a white wicker chair, gazing down the street on a hot June afternoon as still and quiet as a Norman Rockwell painting. He thought about how so much --- his house, his medical career, the total disruption of his family --- could be squandered in such a brief time.
"A young health professional usually doesn't wake up one morning and say 'I want to become an addict.' Not one with two kids. Not one with a career. It just doesn't happen that way," Hays said.
He paused and thought about what he would say next.
"These drugs are so addictive and powerful," he said, "that it is an incredibly strong-willed person who can take them for a long period of time and not become addicted to them."
Chasing the Oxycontin high
People always have chased the euphoria that comes from opiates and the perverse social cachet their abuse confers. Beginning in the early 1990s, on the East and West coasts, heroin became the chic drug of choice because it had re-emerged in a more powerful form than the heroin of two decades before.
The old stuff had to be cut up, mixed in a solution and injected. The new heroin, the most popular of which was known as "black tar," was strong enough to be snorted, providing a speedy, if sometimes fatal, wallop.
The new heroin slashed through Generation X like a vast scythe, felling hundreds of young men and women in their teens and 20s and flooding emergency rooms with thousands more.
A similar high could be obtained by abusing a wide range of opiate-based prescription painkillers with names like Percodan, Vicodin, Demerol and Dilaudid.
But along came Oxycontin, and it upped the ante in ways no one could have predicted, etching a swath of death and addiction, crime and litigation across America, especially in Maine, West Virginia and Kentucky --- places with big rural populations full of sick, elderly people and those recovering from accidents in mines and on farms.
And now Oxycontin has torn into the metro-east. Consider:
* Hospital emergency rooms in the St. Louis area --- which includes St. Clair and Madison counties --- reported a 41 percent increase in admissions overdoses for Oxycontin and other narcotic painkillers between 2001 and 2002, according to the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network.
* Last week, the Southwest Illinois Treatment Center opened a treatment center at an office park in Fairview Heights. The center provides methadone-based outpatient treatment for up to 200 clients per year addicted to Oxycontin and other opiate-based drugs.
* The Simmons Law Firm, based in East Alton and St. Louis, has signed at least 550 clients from Madison County in response to newspapers ads published in June and July. The clients claim they became addicted to Oxycontin and suffered catastrophic health problems after taking the painkiller in the prescribed manner.
"We were absolutely overwhelmed. Not only were we overwhelmed with the numbers, but we were overwhelmed with the consistency of every single story," said Jeff Cooper, a lawyer with the Simmons firm. "And it's amazing once you start looking into it to find that these folks are just having their lives ruined by something that's supposed to heal them."
Oxycontin is the most popular narcotic painkiller in America, ringing up more than $1 billion in sales and filling nearly 6 million prescriptions in 2002.
Introduced in 1995, it was heralded as a godsend for people who suffer from cancer, severe arthritis and other forms of chronic, extreme pain.
Oxycontin's success stems from a concentrated dose of oxycodone, a form of synthetic morphine. A slow-release mechanism in the pill provides 12 hours of soothing, numbing relief throughout the day, eliminating the need for multiple doses.
But like all opiate-based drugs, Oxycontin can be powerfully addictive because the body quickly builds up a tolerance to it.
Heroin addicts soon gravitated to Oxycontin, said Clifford Bernstein, medical director of the Waismann Institute, a Beverly Hills, Calif., drug treatment center where Oxycontin now accounts for most admissions.
"These heroin people love Oxycontin. You can take a pill and chew it," said Bernstein, whose center uses a revolutionary technique of putting patients under anesthesia and cleansing their bodies with special drugs during withdrawal.
Oxycontin provides "the perfect high," Bernstein said.
"It's a high that doesn't make you lose control and people don't know that you're on the stuff," he said. "And it doesn't give you a hangover. So it's like the perfect high, you know."
It's no coincidence that another nickname for Oxycontin is "Killer." Nationwide, it's been linked to at least 400 deaths by overdose, and possibly hundreds more.
The legal fallout
Cooper said his firm plans to file the first set of personal injury lawsuits by the end of this month against Oxycontin's maker, Purdue Pharma, of Stamford, Conn., and its distributor, and Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park, Conn.
Cooper blamed the high addiction levels on Purdue Pharma. Citing a pair of whistleblower lawsuits that have been filed within the past month in Connecticut and Florida, Cooper said the evidence will show Purdue Pharma misled federal regulators about Oxycontin's dangerously addictive nature.
Then the company pushed the drug's sale through a marketing campaign aimed at convincing physicians to prescribe the painkiller for even minor pain, Cooper said.
Cooper is far from alone in making this claim.
In December 2001, while testifying before a congressional subcommittee, the head of the DEA blamed Purdue Pharma's "aggressive marketing practices" for making ! Oxycontin readily available.
Purdue Pharma gave its sales representatives incentives to sell big quantities of Oxycontin, and the sales teams encouraged physicians to prescribe the drug by taking them on expense-paid trips, then-DEA administrator Asa Hutchinson told members of Congress.
Purdue Pharma strenuously denied Hutchinson's allegations at the time.
But Hays corroborated assertions that the company aggressively marketed the painkiller. During his days as a physician, Hays said, Purdue Pharma drug reps freely gave out vouchers for Oxycontin that allowed patients to buy them at deep discounts.
"And these drug reps from Purdue Pharmaceuticals said, 'Hey, this drug is very long-acting and it's not addictive,'" said Hays, who, with his wife, Darla, in September 2002 filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis alleging negligence, fraud and breach of warranty against Purdue Pharma and Abbott Laboratories.
Hays is seeking $300,000 in lost wages and more than $50,000 in punitive damages. In May, a federal judge remanded the Hays case to St. Clair County Circuit Court.
Cooper said what he's found with Oxycontin plaintiffs is they start off by taking one Oxycontin pill, "then they take two a day, and then all of a sudden they need three and four and five a day. It's just amazing."
The average addict, Cooper said, is a person between the ages of 35 and 40 who gets hurt at work or playing a softball game and is prescribed Oxycontin.
"And if you follow the timeline, about a year and a half or two years later, they've lost their job, they've lost their kids, they've lost their family, they've lost everything," Cooper said. "And these are people with no history of addiction, no criminal history."
James Heins, a spokesman for Purdue Pharma, denied the charges made by Cooper, as well as charges made by plaintiffs in 300 lawsuits filed nationwide over Oxycontin.
"These allegations are baseless," Heins wrote in an e-mail to the News-Democrat.
Heins pointed out that almost 50 of these lawsuits have been dismissed. What's more, Heins wrote, Oxycontin is a Schedule II controlled substance whose active ingredient, oxycodone, has been available in the United States for more than 70 years and is used in almost 60 different pain medications.
"The package insert has always carried clear warnings regarding the product's abuse potential," he wrote.
Nonetheless, in late 2001 the Food and Drug Administration ordered Purdue Pharma to affix the strongest type of warning, called a "black box warning," on each bottle of Oxycontin in response to complaints that Oxycontin was being improperly prescribed.
How much blame Purdue Pharma must bear for the abuse of Oxycontin, its blockbuster star, remains an issue of debate among drug treatment professionals.
"It's a powerful drug," said Reeve Sams, regional manager for National Specialty Clinics, the Nashville, Tenn.-based chain of 17 clinics that owns the recently opened Southwest Illinois Treatment Center in Fairview Heights.
But Sams declined to put the onus on Oxycontin or its maker.
"And if Oxycontin wasn't there, it would be something else," Sams said. "So that's why I hate specifically to pick on Oxycontin."
Sams acknowledged, though, that at his firm's clinic in West Virginia, "85 percent of our admissions were Oxycontin addictions."
Bernstein, the Waismann Institute medical director, blamed Purdue Pharma for overselling Oxycontin's benefits while downplaying its dangers.
"It's marketed as a long-lasting drug, but really it's a short-acting drug wrapped in a coating of something that's supposed to dissolve slowly," Bernstein said. "You get a good euphoria from the Oxycontin. I don't believe, personally, for one minute that the Purdue Pharma people didn't know that."
Copyright (c) 2003 The Belleville News-Democrat
Before the Point of No Return, Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353
Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com
Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine.
Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
Belleville News-Democrat
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
* Oxycontin
* Oxycontin Addiction
* Oxycontin Detox
* Oxycontin Treatment
* Oxycontin Testimonials
* Oxycoontin Withdrawals
* Contact Us
The desire for the high that only opiates can give has turned a prescription painkiller into the illicit drug of choice for many Americans.
By Mike Fitgerald
Only an addict can describe the euphoria that comes from that first outlaw hit of Oxycontin.
Only an addict can describe the sheer torture of trying to quit the narcotic painkiller known as "Hillbilly Heroin."
Jon Riley Hays, M.D., knows about both.
Hays, formerly a family practice physician in the Southern Illinois town of Herrin, first took Oxycontin three years ago when a patient turned in a bottle containing some leftover pills.
Hays, 42, at the time had been suffering excruciating back pain from a car accident, preventing a decent night of sleep. The much weaker painkillers he had been given weren't doing the trick.
Hays knew that ingesting the Oxycontin was wrong. But he also believed the claims of sales representatives that Oxycontin is safe and nonaddictive.
Oxycontin: the addictive cycle begins
Within a few minutes of consuming that first Oxycontin tablet, Hays said, "I felt like Superman. I could work all day, be happy, go home, play with the kids. Do everything that I wanted to do.... I just felt like a million bucks."
The addiction advanced rapidly. Within six weeks, he was stealing Oxycontin from patients, crushing up the pills to mix in a saline solution, loading it into a hypodermic needle and plunging it into his arm. He also bought Oxycontin from local pharmacies under false names.
Trying to get out
Terrified of what he had fallen into, Hays tried to wean himself off Oxycontin on the weekends while keeping his addiction a secret from his wife and two small children. It was a prescription for utter misery.
"You're bedridden," Hays said. "Your bones feel like they're on fire and they're melting flesh."
The worst moment occurred when his daughter, who was 4 years old at the time, walked into the bathroom of his house just as he was about to shoot up some Oxycontin, Hays said.
"Her eyes get very big, of course," Hays recalled. "And she asks me, `Dad, what are you doing?'"
Hays shut his eyes for a moment.
"Addicts are very clever people --- clever to get it, clever with excuses," he said. "I said, `Dad's sick and he's giving himself a shot of vitamins.'"
Eventually, through professional treatment, Hays got off Oxycontin. But not before the Drug Enforcement Administration caught up with him. In May 2002, a judge in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis sentenced Hays to 51 months in federal prison for stealing the drug.
The consequences
Today Hays --- once a student brilliant enough to earn full-ride scholarships to the University of Illinois and the university's college of medicine, a man whose lifelong ambition was to be a small town doctor --- is an inmate at the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion.
A few weeks before he entered prison, in early July 2002, Hays sat down with a Belleville News-Democrat reporter to recount his path to and from Oxycontin.
"Just because you're a physician, you don't automatically become immune to addiction," Hays said. "Maybe you're a little more highly educated. But! as in my case, yeah, I knew I was addicted. I knew the warning signs for everything, but it didn't prevent it."
Hays met the reporter at a restaurant in Herrin owned by his nephew. Hays was working at the restaurant as a busboy --- the only job he could find after losing his state medical license.
The former physician sat outside the restaurant on a white wicker chair, gazing down the street on a hot June afternoon as still and quiet as a Norman Rockwell painting. He thought about how so much --- his house, his medical career, the total disruption of his family --- could be squandered in such a brief time.
"A young health professional usually doesn't wake up one morning and say 'I want to become an addict.' Not one with two kids. Not one with a career. It just doesn't happen that way," Hays said.
He paused and thought about what he would say next.
"These drugs are so addictive and powerful," he said, "that it is an incredibly strong-willed person who can take them for a long period of time and not become addicted to them."
Chasing the Oxycontin high
People always have chased the euphoria that comes from opiates and the perverse social cachet their abuse confers. Beginning in the early 1990s, on the East and West coasts, heroin became the chic drug of choice because it had re-emerged in a more powerful form than the heroin of two decades before.
The old stuff had to be cut up, mixed in a solution and injected. The new heroin, the most popular of which was known as "black tar," was strong enough to be snorted, providing a speedy, if sometimes fatal, wallop.
The new heroin slashed through Generation X like a vast scythe, felling hundreds of young men and women in their teens and 20s and flooding emergency rooms with thousands more.
A similar high could be obtained by abusing a wide range of opiate-based prescription painkillers with names like Percodan, Vicodin, Demerol and Dilaudid.
But along came Oxycontin, and it upped the ante in ways no one could have predicted, etching a swath of death and addiction, crime and litigation across America, especially in Maine, West Virginia and Kentucky --- places with big rural populations full of sick, elderly people and those recovering from accidents in mines and on farms.
And now Oxycontin has torn into the metro-east. Consider:
* Hospital emergency rooms in the St. Louis area --- which includes St. Clair and Madison counties --- reported a 41 percent increase in admissions overdoses for Oxycontin and other narcotic painkillers between 2001 and 2002, according to the federal Drug Abuse Warning Network.
* Last week, the Southwest Illinois Treatment Center opened a treatment center at an office park in Fairview Heights. The center provides methadone-based outpatient treatment for up to 200 clients per year addicted to Oxycontin and other opiate-based drugs.
* The Simmons Law Firm, based in East Alton and St. Louis, has signed at least 550 clients from Madison County in response to newspapers ads published in June and July. The clients claim they became addicted to Oxycontin and suffered catastrophic health problems after taking the painkiller in the prescribed manner.
"We were absolutely overwhelmed. Not only were we overwhelmed with the numbers, but we were overwhelmed with the consistency of every single story," said Jeff Cooper, a lawyer with the Simmons firm. "And it's amazing once you start looking into it to find that these folks are just having their lives ruined by something that's supposed to heal them."
Oxycontin is the most popular narcotic painkiller in America, ringing up more than $1 billion in sales and filling nearly 6 million prescriptions in 2002.
Introduced in 1995, it was heralded as a godsend for people who suffer from cancer, severe arthritis and other forms of chronic, extreme pain.
Oxycontin's success stems from a concentrated dose of oxycodone, a form of synthetic morphine. A slow-release mechanism in the pill provides 12 hours of soothing, numbing relief throughout the day, eliminating the need for multiple doses.
But like all opiate-based drugs, Oxycontin can be powerfully addictive because the body quickly builds up a tolerance to it.
Heroin addicts soon gravitated to Oxycontin, said Clifford Bernstein, medical director of the Waismann Institute, a Beverly Hills, Calif., drug treatment center where Oxycontin now accounts for most admissions.
"These heroin people love Oxycontin. You can take a pill and chew it," said Bernstein, whose center uses a revolutionary technique of putting patients under anesthesia and cleansing their bodies with special drugs during withdrawal.
Oxycontin provides "the perfect high," Bernstein said.
"It's a high that doesn't make you lose control and people don't know that you're on the stuff," he said. "And it doesn't give you a hangover. So it's like the perfect high, you know."
It's no coincidence that another nickname for Oxycontin is "Killer." Nationwide, it's been linked to at least 400 deaths by overdose, and possibly hundreds more.
The legal fallout
Cooper said his firm plans to file the first set of personal injury lawsuits by the end of this month against Oxycontin's maker, Purdue Pharma, of Stamford, Conn., and its distributor, and Abbott Laboratories of Abbott Park, Conn.
Cooper blamed the high addiction levels on Purdue Pharma. Citing a pair of whistleblower lawsuits that have been filed within the past month in Connecticut and Florida, Cooper said the evidence will show Purdue Pharma misled federal regulators about Oxycontin's dangerously addictive nature.
Then the company pushed the drug's sale through a marketing campaign aimed at convincing physicians to prescribe the painkiller for even minor pain, Cooper said.
Cooper is far from alone in making this claim.
In December 2001, while testifying before a congressional subcommittee, the head of the DEA blamed Purdue Pharma's "aggressive marketing practices" for making ! Oxycontin readily available.
Purdue Pharma gave its sales representatives incentives to sell big quantities of Oxycontin, and the sales teams encouraged physicians to prescribe the drug by taking them on expense-paid trips, then-DEA administrator Asa Hutchinson told members of Congress.
Purdue Pharma strenuously denied Hutchinson's allegations at the time.
But Hays corroborated assertions that the company aggressively marketed the painkiller. During his days as a physician, Hays said, Purdue Pharma drug reps freely gave out vouchers for Oxycontin that allowed patients to buy them at deep discounts.
"And these drug reps from Purdue Pharmaceuticals said, 'Hey, this drug is very long-acting and it's not addictive,'" said Hays, who, with his wife, Darla, in September 2002 filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in East St. Louis alleging negligence, fraud and breach of warranty against Purdue Pharma and Abbott Laboratories.
Hays is seeking $300,000 in lost wages and more than $50,000 in punitive damages. In May, a federal judge remanded the Hays case to St. Clair County Circuit Court.
Cooper said what he's found with Oxycontin plaintiffs is they start off by taking one Oxycontin pill, "then they take two a day, and then all of a sudden they need three and four and five a day. It's just amazing."
The average addict, Cooper said, is a person between the ages of 35 and 40 who gets hurt at work or playing a softball game and is prescribed Oxycontin.
"And if you follow the timeline, about a year and a half or two years later, they've lost their job, they've lost their kids, they've lost their family, they've lost everything," Cooper said. "And these are people with no history of addiction, no criminal history."
James Heins, a spokesman for Purdue Pharma, denied the charges made by Cooper, as well as charges made by plaintiffs in 300 lawsuits filed nationwide over Oxycontin.
"These allegations are baseless," Heins wrote in an e-mail to the News-Democrat.
Heins pointed out that almost 50 of these lawsuits have been dismissed. What's more, Heins wrote, Oxycontin is a Schedule II controlled substance whose active ingredient, oxycodone, has been available in the United States for more than 70 years and is used in almost 60 different pain medications.
"The package insert has always carried clear warnings regarding the product's abuse potential," he wrote.
Nonetheless, in late 2001 the Food and Drug Administration ordered Purdue Pharma to affix the strongest type of warning, called a "black box warning," on each bottle of Oxycontin in response to complaints that Oxycontin was being improperly prescribed.
How much blame Purdue Pharma must bear for the abuse of Oxycontin, its blockbuster star, remains an issue of debate among drug treatment professionals.
"It's a powerful drug," said Reeve Sams, regional manager for National Specialty Clinics, the Nashville, Tenn.-based chain of 17 clinics that owns the recently opened Southwest Illinois Treatment Center in Fairview Heights.
But Sams declined to put the onus on Oxycontin or its maker.
"And if Oxycontin wasn't there, it would be something else," Sams said. "So that's why I hate specifically to pick on Oxycontin."
Sams acknowledged, though, that at his firm's clinic in West Virginia, "85 percent of our admissions were Oxycontin addictions."
Bernstein, the Waismann Institute medical director, blamed Purdue Pharma for overselling Oxycontin's benefits while downplaying its dangers.
"It's marketed as a long-lasting drug, but really it's a short-acting drug wrapped in a coating of something that's supposed to dissolve slowly," Bernstein said. "You get a good euphoria from the Oxycontin. I don't believe, personally, for one minute that the Purdue Pharma people didn't know that."
Copyright (c) 2003 The Belleville News-Democrat
Before the Point of No Return, Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353
Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com
Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine.
Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
Jail guard arrested in undercover drug bust
BOURNE — A Barnstable County correctional officer was arrested after buying $400 worth of OxyContin from an undercover police officer Friday, law enforcement officials said.
Ryan Carroll, 31, has been suspended without pay following a two-week investigation by the Cape Cod Drug Task Force that resulted in his arrest at 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the McDonald's restaurant on MacArthur Boulevard, Barnstable County Sheriff James Cummings said.
Carroll was not wearing his uniform at the time, Cummings said.
Carroll has been employed as an officer at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility for eight years and has had a good work record, Cummings said. An investigation of his conduct at the jail found no evidence that he was supplying drugs to inmates, he said."That was a concern for us," the sheriff said.
Carroll, a married father of two, came under suspicion when an informant for the Cape Cod Drug Task Force told an officer that the prison guard was looking to purchase the highly addictive opiate-based painkiller OxyContin. The sheriff helped the drug task force investigate Carroll.
"We were working with the Cape Cod Drug Task Force, which did an excellent job," Cummings said.
Carroll was arraigned Friday in Falmouth District Court for possession of OxyContin. He purchased 20 pills for $400 from an undercover officer, according to Cummings.
Carroll, whose address is listed in Plymouth according to Internet records, has been placed on unpaid leave until a termination hearing can be scheduled. The hearing could be held as soon as this week, the sheriff said.
"It shows that no one is immune from OxyContin," Cummings said. "It's a real problem here. ... He has two young children and was in the process of buying a house. This was not good timing for him."
Carroll's arrest tarnishes the work of the 366 employees of the sheriff's department, most of whom do an excellent job, the sheriff said.
The arrest also brings back memories of 2006, when five sheriff's department employees were arrested in a single year. Beginning in January and progressing all through 2006, five officers were charged with various crimes, including shoplifting, domestic assault, assault and battery on a police officer, weapons charges, and drunken driving.
The spree led Cummings to employ a personnel consultant, who made some changes in the hiring process but nothing radical, Cummings said. "He recommended we do a psychological screening of all our employee, but it would be too cost prohibitive," the sheriff said.
Carroll's drug bust is the first arrest of a sheriff department employee since the 2006 incidents, Cummings said. And it's the first arrest of a sheriff's employee for drugs during Cummings' tenure, he added.
Ryan Carroll, 31, has been suspended without pay following a two-week investigation by the Cape Cod Drug Task Force that resulted in his arrest at 1 p.m. in the parking lot of the McDonald's restaurant on MacArthur Boulevard, Barnstable County Sheriff James Cummings said.
Carroll was not wearing his uniform at the time, Cummings said.
Carroll has been employed as an officer at the Barnstable County Correctional Facility for eight years and has had a good work record, Cummings said. An investigation of his conduct at the jail found no evidence that he was supplying drugs to inmates, he said."That was a concern for us," the sheriff said.
Carroll, a married father of two, came under suspicion when an informant for the Cape Cod Drug Task Force told an officer that the prison guard was looking to purchase the highly addictive opiate-based painkiller OxyContin. The sheriff helped the drug task force investigate Carroll.
"We were working with the Cape Cod Drug Task Force, which did an excellent job," Cummings said.
Carroll was arraigned Friday in Falmouth District Court for possession of OxyContin. He purchased 20 pills for $400 from an undercover officer, according to Cummings.
Carroll, whose address is listed in Plymouth according to Internet records, has been placed on unpaid leave until a termination hearing can be scheduled. The hearing could be held as soon as this week, the sheriff said.
"It shows that no one is immune from OxyContin," Cummings said. "It's a real problem here. ... He has two young children and was in the process of buying a house. This was not good timing for him."
Carroll's arrest tarnishes the work of the 366 employees of the sheriff's department, most of whom do an excellent job, the sheriff said.
The arrest also brings back memories of 2006, when five sheriff's department employees were arrested in a single year. Beginning in January and progressing all through 2006, five officers were charged with various crimes, including shoplifting, domestic assault, assault and battery on a police officer, weapons charges, and drunken driving.
The spree led Cummings to employ a personnel consultant, who made some changes in the hiring process but nothing radical, Cummings said. "He recommended we do a psychological screening of all our employee, but it would be too cost prohibitive," the sheriff said.
Carroll's drug bust is the first arrest of a sheriff department employee since the 2006 incidents, Cummings said. And it's the first arrest of a sheriff's employee for drugs during Cummings' tenure, he added.
Bills Would Let Mass. Tally Drug Overdoses
BOSTON -- Lawmakers are weighing a series of bills designed to give Massachusetts a more comprehensive tally of OxyContin and heroin overdoses.
The state has struggled in recent years to get a handle on the problem as the number of overdoses has crept steadily upward.
On Tuesday, the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health holds a public hearing on a series of the bills targeting drug overdoses.
One would require every doctor treating someone suffering from an overdose to file a report with the state Department of Public Health detailing the type of drug used and the patient's age, race, gender and hometown, while keeping their identity private.
A goal of the legislation is to look for trends so the state can better combat overdoses.
The state has struggled in recent years to get a handle on the problem as the number of overdoses has crept steadily upward.
On Tuesday, the Legislature's Joint Committee on Public Health holds a public hearing on a series of the bills targeting drug overdoses.
One would require every doctor treating someone suffering from an overdose to file a report with the state Department of Public Health detailing the type of drug used and the patient's age, race, gender and hometown, while keeping their identity private.
A goal of the legislation is to look for trends so the state can better combat overdoses.
My turn: Drug testing students won't solve Juneau's drug problem
When people ask what I would do about the present drug epidemic, my first response would be to try not to make it worse. About drug testing in particular, I suggest Richard C. Cowan's article "How the Narcs Created Crack: A War Against Ourselves" (National Review, Dec. 5, 1986).
Cowan introduces the "Iron Law of Prohibition" which says that the more vigorously substances are persecuted the more concentrated they become. It's worth noting that crack, heroin, cocaine, angel dust and meth are all still around, even though their status as epidemics has fallen off the front page.
It's also worth noting that at least three of the so-called Drug Czars - Robert DuPont, Carlton Turner and D. Ian MacDonald - left their national positions and went into the private sector selling drug testing kits. It's very lucrative.
Drug testing was something John Walters, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George W. Bush, campaigned vigorously for. Walters wanted drug screening to be part of every medical examination for everybody, just like taking your blood pressure.
Everyone, including kids, knows if you take heroin, oxy, cocaine and other drugs that can kill you, you'll test negative in 8-48 hours. Marijuana has never had a recorded fatal overdose, but fat soluble metabolites may test positive for 30 days. The Juneau drug testing plan is to "test for everything," including marijuana. We can't test for everything since everything isn't invented yet. But even if we could, when you Google "beating a drug test" you get a million and a quarter hits.
In my mind the problem isn't permissiveness with the kids, but permissiveness with the drug companies. In 2002, the top 10 pharmaceutical companies made more profit than the other 490 companies in the Fortune 500 combined. From 2000 to 2004, retail sales of commonly abused drugs - such as OxyContin and psychotropics - more than doubled in America. An army of more than 100,000 drug reps works to get doctors to write more prescriptions. They sell us the poison. They sell us the antidote.
A drug war and pulling down our pants for drug testing won't solve that. The drug war has made our country the world's leading jailer, but convicts can still get illegal drugs in maximum security prisons.
As Cowan predicted "We are not going to be drug free. Just unfree."
• Dick Callahan is a Juneau resident.
Before the Point of No Return, Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353
Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com
Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine.
Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
Cowan introduces the "Iron Law of Prohibition" which says that the more vigorously substances are persecuted the more concentrated they become. It's worth noting that crack, heroin, cocaine, angel dust and meth are all still around, even though their status as epidemics has fallen off the front page.
It's also worth noting that at least three of the so-called Drug Czars - Robert DuPont, Carlton Turner and D. Ian MacDonald - left their national positions and went into the private sector selling drug testing kits. It's very lucrative.
Drug testing was something John Walters, head of the Office of National Drug Control Policy under President George W. Bush, campaigned vigorously for. Walters wanted drug screening to be part of every medical examination for everybody, just like taking your blood pressure.
Everyone, including kids, knows if you take heroin, oxy, cocaine and other drugs that can kill you, you'll test negative in 8-48 hours. Marijuana has never had a recorded fatal overdose, but fat soluble metabolites may test positive for 30 days. The Juneau drug testing plan is to "test for everything," including marijuana. We can't test for everything since everything isn't invented yet. But even if we could, when you Google "beating a drug test" you get a million and a quarter hits.
In my mind the problem isn't permissiveness with the kids, but permissiveness with the drug companies. In 2002, the top 10 pharmaceutical companies made more profit than the other 490 companies in the Fortune 500 combined. From 2000 to 2004, retail sales of commonly abused drugs - such as OxyContin and psychotropics - more than doubled in America. An army of more than 100,000 drug reps works to get doctors to write more prescriptions. They sell us the poison. They sell us the antidote.
A drug war and pulling down our pants for drug testing won't solve that. The drug war has made our country the world's leading jailer, but convicts can still get illegal drugs in maximum security prisons.
As Cowan predicted "We are not going to be drug free. Just unfree."
• Dick Callahan is a Juneau resident.
Before the Point of No Return, Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353
Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com
Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine.
Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
5 Keys to Happiness
Here are five ways — some admittedly challenging — to help you get that much-needed mood boost:
1. Pick good parents
In Happy Land, genes trump environmental factors, according to the experts. And a study in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science scores another point for the gene team: Differences in DNA that could explain why some people tend to have an extra bounce in their step might also underlie the tendency to be more emotionally stable and socially and physically active.
Genes do not provide free passes from the doldrums, and other external factors will still try to mow you down. But, heredity could provide some people with a horde of happiness that they can draw from when the good times aren’t rolling.
And Canadian researchers' ability to genetically stifle depression in mice in 2006 indicates that human happiness could one day be improved by manipulating genes. This was the first time science throttled the throes of any organism. Mice bred to be void of the gene, called TREK-1, acted as if they had been downing anti-depressants for at least three weeks.
2. Give it away
It only takes $5 spent on others to make you happier on a given day, according to a 2008 study. And selfless acts can also help your marriage become a more enjoyable experience for you and your spouse.
After performing good deeds, people are happier and feel their life has more purpose. But is the act selfless if you expect something in return? Maybe it just depends on how you look at it.
3. Ponder this
Think of a happy place. And you, too, like Happy Gilmore, might sink that putt and earn back your grandmother's house — or overcome your own hurdle.
Humans are more resilient than we think and can endure trying times, as demonstrated in a 2005 study that tracked mood changes in dialysis patients. They were in a good mood most of the time despite having their blood cleaned three times a week for at least three months. But healthy patients envisioned a miserable life when asked to imagine adhering to this demanding schedule.
As Winston Churchill said, "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
4. Work out
Consistently breaking a sweat, along with medication and counseling can help people battling depression by sapping lonely and vulnerable feelings.
Exercise improves one's state of mind in part by affecting the body's levels of two chemicals: cortisol and endorphins. The adrenal glands of angry or scared people produce cortisol. This increases blood pressure and blood sugar, weakens the immune response and can lead to organ inflammation and damage. But working out burns cortisol, restoring the body's normal levels.
Running, biking or using an aerobic exercise machine also causes the brain to release endorphins — the body's natural pain relievers — into the bloodstream. The body foregoes the negative side effects of drugs while still experiencing a natural high. To gain the most from your workout, make sure its intensity reflects your stress level. And challenge your body to continually adapt by varying the exercise’s length and intensity.
5. Live long
If you have the right genes and are selfless, optimistic and active but still find yourself down in the dumps, just give it some time.
A study of 2 million people from 80 nations released in January found that depression is most common among adults in their mid-40s. Among Americans, the worst of times hit women around age 40 and men about age 50.
But with age humans are more inclined to filter out the negatives while focusing on what they enjoy.
Americans in their golden years tend to see the glass as half full, despite their increased doctor visits and chemo treatments. After battling cancer, heart disease, diabetes or other health-related obstacles, 500 independent Americans from age 60 to 98 rated their own degree of successful aging as 8.4 on average, with 10 being the highest in a 2005 study.
Happiness, it seems, takes time.
1. Pick good parents
In Happy Land, genes trump environmental factors, according to the experts. And a study in the March issue of the journal Psychological Science scores another point for the gene team: Differences in DNA that could explain why some people tend to have an extra bounce in their step might also underlie the tendency to be more emotionally stable and socially and physically active.
Genes do not provide free passes from the doldrums, and other external factors will still try to mow you down. But, heredity could provide some people with a horde of happiness that they can draw from when the good times aren’t rolling.
And Canadian researchers' ability to genetically stifle depression in mice in 2006 indicates that human happiness could one day be improved by manipulating genes. This was the first time science throttled the throes of any organism. Mice bred to be void of the gene, called TREK-1, acted as if they had been downing anti-depressants for at least three weeks.
2. Give it away
It only takes $5 spent on others to make you happier on a given day, according to a 2008 study. And selfless acts can also help your marriage become a more enjoyable experience for you and your spouse.
After performing good deeds, people are happier and feel their life has more purpose. But is the act selfless if you expect something in return? Maybe it just depends on how you look at it.
3. Ponder this
Think of a happy place. And you, too, like Happy Gilmore, might sink that putt and earn back your grandmother's house — or overcome your own hurdle.
Humans are more resilient than we think and can endure trying times, as demonstrated in a 2005 study that tracked mood changes in dialysis patients. They were in a good mood most of the time despite having their blood cleaned three times a week for at least three months. But healthy patients envisioned a miserable life when asked to imagine adhering to this demanding schedule.
As Winston Churchill said, "A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty."
4. Work out
Consistently breaking a sweat, along with medication and counseling can help people battling depression by sapping lonely and vulnerable feelings.
Exercise improves one's state of mind in part by affecting the body's levels of two chemicals: cortisol and endorphins. The adrenal glands of angry or scared people produce cortisol. This increases blood pressure and blood sugar, weakens the immune response and can lead to organ inflammation and damage. But working out burns cortisol, restoring the body's normal levels.
Running, biking or using an aerobic exercise machine also causes the brain to release endorphins — the body's natural pain relievers — into the bloodstream. The body foregoes the negative side effects of drugs while still experiencing a natural high. To gain the most from your workout, make sure its intensity reflects your stress level. And challenge your body to continually adapt by varying the exercise’s length and intensity.
5. Live long
If you have the right genes and are selfless, optimistic and active but still find yourself down in the dumps, just give it some time.
A study of 2 million people from 80 nations released in January found that depression is most common among adults in their mid-40s. Among Americans, the worst of times hit women around age 40 and men about age 50.
But with age humans are more inclined to filter out the negatives while focusing on what they enjoy.
Americans in their golden years tend to see the glass as half full, despite their increased doctor visits and chemo treatments. After battling cancer, heart disease, diabetes or other health-related obstacles, 500 independent Americans from age 60 to 98 rated their own degree of successful aging as 8.4 on average, with 10 being the highest in a 2005 study.
Happiness, it seems, takes time.
Friday, April 17, 2009
Ky. sees rise in overdose deaths from pills obtained in Fla.
LEXINGTON, Ky. -- In tiny Bath County, nine people have died since August from overdoses of powerful pain pills that were prescribed by Florida doctors, including a mother and son who died just five months apart.
"They were all that I had. I tried to watch them as close as I could," said Floyd Chapman, referring to his mother, Barbara Robertson, dead at 53, and his brother, James Chapman, who died at age 35.
Floyd Chapman said he attempted to dissuade the pair from joining thousands of Kentuckians who travel in cars, vans and airplanes to South Florida's pain clinics. Once there, people get monthly prescriptions for hundreds of painkillers like oxycodone. Increasing numbers of Kentuckians are dying as a result.
Drug policy officials in Florida and Kentucky have not tracked the number of overdose deaths along the Interstate 75 pill pipeline. But coroners, physicians and law enforcement officers who are starting to tally the numbers say they are alarmed.
"It's epidemic. I don't know what the answer is. But it's got to stop," said Robert J. Powell, Bath County's coroner.
A combination of factors has led to the much-travelled Kentucky-Florida pipeline. Kentucky and 37 other states electronically monitor the number of narcotics prescriptions a person obtains from physicians. The Sunshine State has no such system. That has led to a proliferation of storefront medical clinics in Florida whose parking lots are filled with cars from Appalachian states and where doctors prescribe and dispense the often-abused drugs for cash.
A Herald-Leader survey of coroners in just three Kentucky counties — Montgomery, Rowan and Floyd — found that 14 people had overdosed on pain pills they obtained from Florida physicians in 2008.
Powell said that, in the past, he investigated about one fatal drug overdose a year in Bath County, where the population is just more than 11,000. Recently, he's seen about one a month.
Van Ingram, director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control, said he is surprised at how quickly the problem has grown.
"I never dreamed that it would be as big as it turned out to be," said Ingram, who said the problem has intensified in the last eight months. "We are hearing of thousands of Kentuckians going to Florida to get prescriptions and ... people going in droves to pharmacies in states along I-75 to get the prescriptions filled."
Death on the road
Not all the deaths connected to the Florida pain-pill phenomenon are overdoses.
In January, a Morehead man and his fiancée were found dead in their car at a Florida rest stop. The cause was carbon monoxide poisoning.
Sgt. Chuck Mulligan, a St. Johns County, Fla., sheriff's spokesman, said he has no evidence that Kenneth Oldham, 23, and Kayla Hinton, 22, had drugs or alcohol in their systems. But in their black Volkswagen Jetta was a bottle of pain pills prescribed by a South Florida physician and filled by a pharmacy there just before they died.
Mulligan said he did not know whom the prescription was for, but the information about the pills has been turned over to police in South Florida.
Denise Hamrick, Oldham's mother, said she did not know her son was in Florida until police came to tell her that he had died.
Hamrick says she hopes Florida passes a law that would require a prescription monitoring system.
"I think all states should pass the laws," Hamrick said.
At least one murder has been linked to the interstate pipeline. Brent Conn of Rowan County died of an overdose in a Florida motel room in 2007 after traveling to Florida in a car with Timothy Riggs of Bath County.
Call us today to discuss how the V.I.P. Way can free you from your opiate dependency and get your life back. Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353 Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine. Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
"They were all that I had. I tried to watch them as close as I could," said Floyd Chapman, referring to his mother, Barbara Robertson, dead at 53, and his brother, James Chapman, who died at age 35.
Floyd Chapman said he attempted to dissuade the pair from joining thousands of Kentuckians who travel in cars, vans and airplanes to South Florida's pain clinics. Once there, people get monthly prescriptions for hundreds of painkillers like oxycodone. Increasing numbers of Kentuckians are dying as a result.
Drug policy officials in Florida and Kentucky have not tracked the number of overdose deaths along the Interstate 75 pill pipeline. But coroners, physicians and law enforcement officers who are starting to tally the numbers say they are alarmed.
"It's epidemic. I don't know what the answer is. But it's got to stop," said Robert J. Powell, Bath County's coroner.
A combination of factors has led to the much-travelled Kentucky-Florida pipeline. Kentucky and 37 other states electronically monitor the number of narcotics prescriptions a person obtains from physicians. The Sunshine State has no such system. That has led to a proliferation of storefront medical clinics in Florida whose parking lots are filled with cars from Appalachian states and where doctors prescribe and dispense the often-abused drugs for cash.
A Herald-Leader survey of coroners in just three Kentucky counties — Montgomery, Rowan and Floyd — found that 14 people had overdosed on pain pills they obtained from Florida physicians in 2008.
Powell said that, in the past, he investigated about one fatal drug overdose a year in Bath County, where the population is just more than 11,000. Recently, he's seen about one a month.
Van Ingram, director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control, said he is surprised at how quickly the problem has grown.
"I never dreamed that it would be as big as it turned out to be," said Ingram, who said the problem has intensified in the last eight months. "We are hearing of thousands of Kentuckians going to Florida to get prescriptions and ... people going in droves to pharmacies in states along I-75 to get the prescriptions filled."
Death on the road
Not all the deaths connected to the Florida pain-pill phenomenon are overdoses.
In January, a Morehead man and his fiancée were found dead in their car at a Florida rest stop. The cause was carbon monoxide poisoning.
Sgt. Chuck Mulligan, a St. Johns County, Fla., sheriff's spokesman, said he has no evidence that Kenneth Oldham, 23, and Kayla Hinton, 22, had drugs or alcohol in their systems. But in their black Volkswagen Jetta was a bottle of pain pills prescribed by a South Florida physician and filled by a pharmacy there just before they died.
Mulligan said he did not know whom the prescription was for, but the information about the pills has been turned over to police in South Florida.
Denise Hamrick, Oldham's mother, said she did not know her son was in Florida until police came to tell her that he had died.
Hamrick says she hopes Florida passes a law that would require a prescription monitoring system.
"I think all states should pass the laws," Hamrick said.
At least one murder has been linked to the interstate pipeline. Brent Conn of Rowan County died of an overdose in a Florida motel room in 2007 after traveling to Florida in a car with Timothy Riggs of Bath County.
Call us today to discuss how the V.I.P. Way can free you from your opiate dependency and get your life back. Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353 Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine. Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
Teens get hooked on prescription drugs from home
CHICO -- Behind the frightening numbers are the frightened faces of children, hundreds of them in Butte County, hooked on powerful drugs they get from their parents' medicine cabinets.
Authorities say the use of opiates -- which include Oxycontin, Fentanyl, Vicodin, Soma, Ritalin, cough syrups and any medication ending in "pam" -- are on the increase among Butte County youth.
Shelby Boston, with Butte County Children's Services Division, noted that in 2003 only 1 percent of children in foster care had or were endangered by opiate addictions.
In 2008 that number jumped to 4.3 percent. About half the children she sees with oxycodone problems also drink, Boston said.
About 9 percent of seniors in local high schools have tried opiates.
Retired chief probation officer Helen Harberts, now working with the District Attorney's Office, noted that "Addiction is a disease of the brain, and with youth, just about everything is about the brain."
Harberts, the lead-off speaker at a Chico forum Wednesday night discussing prescription drug use by adolescents, noted the brains of people under 25 aren't wired to always "think through potential outcomes."
When what Harberts referred to as "common sense deficit disorder" is combined with drugs, the outcome can be tragic and life-altering.
"Oxy is perhaps the most powerful prescription drug; it can take over the adolescent brain very quickly," she said. "The enemy is in your home, and in your medicine cabinets,"
Harberts told parents in the audience.
Reports of people missing prescribed medications, especially oxycodone, are common to police departments, but adults rarely suspect their children or grandchildren.
"We're seeing that 75 percent of prescription drugs used illegally by children are coming from their homes," said Chico police Sgt. Ford Porter. "They bring drugs to school to either use them, trade them, sell them or give them away," Porter said.
A small percentage of drugs children abuse have been legally prescribed to them by physicians.
Even when children are caught with drugs at school, Porter said parents usually seem puzzled about where they got them.
Porter mentioned a kind of underground exchange of drugs that was taking place recently between students at Pleasant Valley High in Chico and Paradise High. He said it wasn't discovered until a buyer at one of the schools became very ill from drug use.
Kellee Rhoades, a 17-year-old who now talks openly about a prescription drug habit that began when she was about 14, said she reacted typically to an opiate addition. "I kept it all inside, and it wasn't good for me," Rhoades said. "If I wasn't high, I was alone in my room."
Experts call the behavior "isolating."
"I think all I really needed at that point in my addiction was somebody to compassionately ask if I needed help," she said. "I didn't have anybody in my family in my home life, which was very dysfunctional, to do that for me," Rhoades said.
"When I turned 15 I was on a good number of substances. I broke into a house, and that ruined by teenage years," she said. "I'd do anything to get that time back."
Rhoades decided to seek help on her own, has been sober for a year, and is now enrolled at Butte College.
Cyla Nelson, a drug rehabilitation expert and assessor for a program called California Access to Recovery Effort, said she's seeing a third generation of prescription drug abusers in Butte County.
She noted parents often need help and support themselves, before they can help their children.
Rhoades said Nelson was among a handful of people to give her an encouraging word when she needed it most. Nelson and Rhoades have become friends outside of a clinical setting.
Chico police street crimes officer Kevin Hass observed that methamphetamine is still the drug of choice in Chico. "But if meth is the king, Oxycontin is the queen," he said.
District Attorney Mike Ramsey said he often gets calls from parents who ask him to be the heavy in trying to influence children they suspect of doing drugs. "I don't mind being the bogey man," he told his audience. "Please use me."
Ramsey explained the key to explaining law enforcement's role in drug abuse prevention is not to frighten people so much that they don't seek help.
Wednesday's forum was organized by Butte County Juvenile Court Judge Tamara Mosbarger and the Chico Unified School District.
Call us today to discuss how the V.I.P. Way can free you from your opiate dependency and get your life back. Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353 Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine. Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
Authorities say the use of opiates -- which include Oxycontin, Fentanyl, Vicodin, Soma, Ritalin, cough syrups and any medication ending in "pam" -- are on the increase among Butte County youth.
Shelby Boston, with Butte County Children's Services Division, noted that in 2003 only 1 percent of children in foster care had or were endangered by opiate addictions.
In 2008 that number jumped to 4.3 percent. About half the children she sees with oxycodone problems also drink, Boston said.
About 9 percent of seniors in local high schools have tried opiates.
Retired chief probation officer Helen Harberts, now working with the District Attorney's Office, noted that "Addiction is a disease of the brain, and with youth, just about everything is about the brain."
Harberts, the lead-off speaker at a Chico forum Wednesday night discussing prescription drug use by adolescents, noted the brains of people under 25 aren't wired to always "think through potential outcomes."
When what Harberts referred to as "common sense deficit disorder" is combined with drugs, the outcome can be tragic and life-altering.
"Oxy is perhaps the most powerful prescription drug; it can take over the adolescent brain very quickly," she said. "The enemy is in your home, and in your medicine cabinets,"
Harberts told parents in the audience.
Reports of people missing prescribed medications, especially oxycodone, are common to police departments, but adults rarely suspect their children or grandchildren.
"We're seeing that 75 percent of prescription drugs used illegally by children are coming from their homes," said Chico police Sgt. Ford Porter. "They bring drugs to school to either use them, trade them, sell them or give them away," Porter said.
A small percentage of drugs children abuse have been legally prescribed to them by physicians.
Even when children are caught with drugs at school, Porter said parents usually seem puzzled about where they got them.
Porter mentioned a kind of underground exchange of drugs that was taking place recently between students at Pleasant Valley High in Chico and Paradise High. He said it wasn't discovered until a buyer at one of the schools became very ill from drug use.
Kellee Rhoades, a 17-year-old who now talks openly about a prescription drug habit that began when she was about 14, said she reacted typically to an opiate addition. "I kept it all inside, and it wasn't good for me," Rhoades said. "If I wasn't high, I was alone in my room."
Experts call the behavior "isolating."
"I think all I really needed at that point in my addiction was somebody to compassionately ask if I needed help," she said. "I didn't have anybody in my family in my home life, which was very dysfunctional, to do that for me," Rhoades said.
"When I turned 15 I was on a good number of substances. I broke into a house, and that ruined by teenage years," she said. "I'd do anything to get that time back."
Rhoades decided to seek help on her own, has been sober for a year, and is now enrolled at Butte College.
Cyla Nelson, a drug rehabilitation expert and assessor for a program called California Access to Recovery Effort, said she's seeing a third generation of prescription drug abusers in Butte County.
She noted parents often need help and support themselves, before they can help their children.
Rhoades said Nelson was among a handful of people to give her an encouraging word when she needed it most. Nelson and Rhoades have become friends outside of a clinical setting.
Chico police street crimes officer Kevin Hass observed that methamphetamine is still the drug of choice in Chico. "But if meth is the king, Oxycontin is the queen," he said.
District Attorney Mike Ramsey said he often gets calls from parents who ask him to be the heavy in trying to influence children they suspect of doing drugs. "I don't mind being the bogey man," he told his audience. "Please use me."
Ramsey explained the key to explaining law enforcement's role in drug abuse prevention is not to frighten people so much that they don't seek help.
Wednesday's forum was organized by Butte County Juvenile Court Judge Tamara Mosbarger and the Chico Unified School District.
Call us today to discuss how the V.I.P. Way can free you from your opiate dependency and get your life back. Call today: (800)276-7021 or (702)308-6353 Email: info@rapiddetoxlasvegas.com Medical Director: Board-Certified by American Board of Anesthesiology 1994, former chief of cardiac anesthesia, University of Nevada School of Medicine. Board-Certified by American Board of Pain Medicine 1997, Clinical Assistant Professor University Nevada School of Medicine.
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