When OxyContin was first manufactured, no one knew what type of destruction this particular drug would cause those who got caught up in abusing or misusing the drug. Perdue Pharma L.P. first introduced the drug in 1995 to help people battling cancer, and soon after the drug was being recommended for treating moderate to severe pain cases. When this happened, sales eventually sky rocketed, and in 2003 there were 1.6 billion dollars of worldwide sales. Perdue Pharma were being severely criticized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) for its very aggressive marketing tactics and ability to encourage physicians to prescribe the drug.

In the late 1990’s the Chief Coroner of Ontario at that time was noticing more people were dying from prescription drug overdose. When he asked for forensic scientists to review the drug related death files for the past five years, it was found that there was a major increase in deaths where Oxycodone was found in the blood stream. In 2003, there were 101 deaths in Ontario where the person had Oxycodone in their blood stream. The Chief Coroner at the time reported seeing this increase in deaths around the same time that the drug was being aggressively marketed. Many of the people who died where drug abusers, but many of the people who died from accidental overdose or suicide, were prescribed drugs with Oxycodone in it, and OxyContin being the most popular.

Perdue Pharma defended their drug saying it was no different then any other pain medication being marketed. Unfortunately, there was no other documentation of other pain medications causing the same problems at the time. Atlantic Canada was facing similar problems, and still is to this very day. They have been seeing dangerous social problems that have involved OxyContin abuse. In 2003 pharmacies dispensed over 2.8 million prescriptions for drugs containing Oxycodone in Canada, mainly Ontario, and the most popular was OxyContin. For more information call, 1-877-782-7409, or visit the web site at, http://narconon.ca/

(Ref: Works Cited CTV.ca News Staff “Deadly Prescriptions” CTV.ca 10 Jan. 2005:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1105144562644_1/?hub=Wfive)

Via EPR Network
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