Drug Treatment Articles
New Version of OxyContin Could Increase Heroin Abuse
OxyContin is a slow release narcotic painkiller often prescribed to cancer patients. Currently sold as a small white pill, a new version of the drug is about to appear on the market.
The new time-release version will make it harder to people to abuse OxyContin, who usually chew, cut, break or crush the pills in order to increase its effect, or else they dissolve them into liquids and inject themselves with the solution. The new version, already approved by the Federal Drug Administration, is more tamper-proof.
OxyContin abuse is one of the fastest increasing kinds of substance abuse in the United States ever since it was first introduced in 1995. The drug is very popular among teenagers -- in a study from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, one in 20 high school students said they have tried it.
Experts in the field of substance abuse are not particularly enthusiastic about the Purdue Pharmaceutical's new version of OxyContin. They are concerned that if the drug becomes less available, more people will turn to street heroin, OxyContin's chemical cousin.
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