Thanks for the post
Maine sends us customers.  Last year was tough detoxing folks
from oxy.  It has leveled off. Back to H detox and Etoh.
(not looking forward to more work hours)
Mke

"Gary Poppins" <garypoppins2002@hotmail.com> wrote...

The alleged harm and abuse due to OxyContin have been ridiculously
exaggerated.  Independent scientific studies found that very few of the
"overdose" deaths reportedly due to oxycontin were actually due to
oxycontin, at least alone (many were caused by taking several potent drugs
at the same time).  And some were just suicides.

"Of the 919 drug abuse cases, the vast majority (N = 889, 96.7%) were
multiple drug abuse deaths in which there was at least one other plausible
contributory drug in addition to oxycodone."
Cone EJ, Fant RV, Rohay JM, Caplan YH, Ballina M, Reder RF, Spyker D, Haddox
JD. Oxycodone involvement in drug abuse deaths: a DAWN-based classification
scheme applied to an oxycodone postmortem database containing over 1000
cases. J Anal Toxicol. 2003 Mar;27(2):57-67.

And see:
Purdue Pharma Disputes DEA Analysis of Medical Examiner Reports
Stamford, CT - April 16, 2002 - Physicians from the U.S. Food & Drug
Administration (FDA) and Purdue Pharma attended a meeting at the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Administration (DEA) on April 12th to review for the first time
the DEA's interpretation of Medical Examiner reports on overdose deaths in
which the analgesic oxycodone was present post mortem.  At the meeting, DEA
presented an overview of past Medical Examiner reports received by the
agency and suggested there had been an increase in the number of overdose
deaths "attributed" to OxyContin (oxycodone HCl controlled-release) Tablets.
The DEA has acknowledged, however, that these terms do not mean that
OxyContin was the cause of death.  Purdue physicians strongly disagreed with
the DEA's interpretation of these reports, which suffers from serious
methodological flaws that undermine the conclusions drawn.

Of the 949 complete Medical Examiner reports received by DEA covering a
two-year period, 146 deaths were categorized by the DEA as "OxyContin
verified" deaths and 318 deaths were categorized as "OxyContin likely.". DEA
acknowledged that the term "OxyContin verified" means only that the DEA
agency has concluded to its satisfaction that OxyContin was a source of the
oxycodone present in the bloodstream - - not necessarily the cause of death.
The term "OxyContin- likely" is similarly used by the DEA to speculate on
the source of the oxycodone found in the blood, but not on the cause of
death.  The majority of post-mortem toxicology reports showed that multiple
drugs were present.  Purdue physicians strongly disagreed with the DEA's
interpretation of these reports, which suffers from serious interpretive and
methodological flaws that undermine the conclusions drawn.
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Even if OxyContin should get into the hands of actual addicts, it would in
fact be less dangerous than street drugs, which typically contain dangerous
contaminants and are of unknown dose.

JA Golczewski, Ph.D.
http://users.rcn.com/jigo/jg.HTM
Updates, free book on health and life-extension

Oxycontin is no different than hydromorphine sustained release preps,
morphine sustained release, or any of the other opiates. It just managed to
gain noteriety because the press picked up on it and made it there golden
child for a while. They are all just opiates, all can be abuse, misused, and
can  kill if used inappropriately. This is no difference than people OD on
heroin, except that nobody cares about junkies dying because the drugs arre
not made by legit companies that people can actually sue. When will the
public realize that drugs, when taken in excess, can kill. Recently, in my
hospital, we had a women die from drinking to much water, seriously. Should
be sue the water company?