OxyContin Addiction: Blame The Victim

In light of the recent OxyContin lawsuit, The Eagle-Tribune, a newspaper from a suburb north of Boston, ran an opinion/editorial today suggesting that pharmaceutical companies can do some bad things, but that the "ultimate responsibility" lies with the drug user.

Something about that pissed me off.

I whacked away at the keyboard with the following response, which basically mirrors my manifesto. I hope you enjoy it. A link to the Op/Ed is at the end. As always, I welcome your thoughts.

To the Editor:

I was one of the people referred to in a recent Eagle-Tribune editorial who became addicted to OxyContin by “…crushing it and snorting it up the nose to achieve an instant high.” The editorial asks the question “…who is responsible for the addiction?”

Despite the sarcastic response to the question by the Eagle-Tribune, I choose to stand exposed and humbly admit that the responsibility was mine. However, the assertion by the Eagle-Tribune that “…the ultimate responsibility for prescription drug abuse rests with those who misuse products intended to provide relief from legitimate medical conditions…” is shallow and far too simplistic.

The active ingredient in OxyContin is oxycodone. Oxycodone is made from opium. Opium comes from a plant called papaver somniferum, the opium poppy. The main source for the opium in oxycodone is Afghanistan, where it is legally grown under controls by the United Nations.

The active ingredient in heroin comes from opium, which is made from papaver somniferum, the same poppy plant that makes the opium for OxyContin. The main source for the opium in heroin is Afghanistan, where it is grown illegally.

When I abused OxyContin, I didn’t have a “heroin-like” high. I had the exact same high.

The Eagle-Tribune could have asked a better question, which is: despite all of our advances in modern medicine, why is it that our front-line response to severe pain is virtually identical to the same drug that has been turning good people into drug-crazed junkies since the beginning of civilization? Can we seriously tell cancer victims that the best we can offer them is a modern-day version of the same opiate that made life-long addicts out of wounded soldiers in the Civil War? Is telling a sufferer of debilitating, chronic arthritis that the best medicine we can prescribe is a derivative of the same drug that killed John Belushi, Chris Farley, and Janis Joplin? How can we not laugh at the insanity of our doctors being urged by pharmaceutical companies to prescribe a variation of the same drug, from the same poppy plant that was used by Hippocrates over 2400 years ago?

Is OxyContin a miracle drug or is it merely the same old thing dressed up in a new a costume, hand sewn by pharmaceutical executives? If OxyContin was a miracle drug, it could not be abused, and as a result, this conversation wouldn’t be necessary.

We imprison the sellers of heroin and seize the profits from their activities because of the harm their product causes our society. When a company sells a drug that can be diverted from legitimate use, then be traded, abused, and destroy lives, the Eagle-Tribune would have us believe that the company is ultimately absolved because those who died merely lacked the moral capacity to accept responsibility and were therefore deserving of their death.

If it is assumed that Purdue Pharma was paid for every single tablet of OxyContin that left their factories, then it must be true that every time I snorted a crushed tablet of OxyContin, the money eventually found its way back to Purdue Pharma. If I was wrong for snorting their OxyContin, is Purdue Pharma right for keeping my money? The Eagle-Tribune would have us believe that if a pharmaceutical company warns the public that a drug has the potential to be used in a harmful way, the company is relieved of responsibility. Using that same logic, I should be able to sell heroin as long as I sell it to someone with the “intent to provide relief from legitimate medical conditions such as chronic pain.” How can the position of the Eagle-Tribune draw a distinction? After all, heroin and OxyContin are twin alkaloid brothers of the same mother poppy, and heroin could be legitimately used to kill the same pain that OxyContin does.

To recover from my addiction to OxyContin, I was prescribed a real miracle drug, another opiate derivative called Suboxone. Without it I would still be addicted, or spending the rest of my life going to a Methadone clinic. The government is so concerned about people misusing Suboxone that the manufacturer has been required by the D.E.A. to formulate it in a complex way that would radically sicken anyone who tried to abuse it. As a result, addicts take this new medicine as intended and they get well. The government placed strict requirements on how the Suboxone can be administered, who can administer it, and even placed a limit on the number of patients a doctor may prescribe it to. Getting treatment with this new miracle drug is difficult because of the few doctors who are willing to put up the training and reporting the government requires. The difficulty I faced in getting this life-saving treatment led me to one last revealing question.

After making the reprehensible suggestion that those who died from abusing OxyContin are ultimately responsible for their own deaths, my final question is one that the Eagle-Tribune doesn’t have the empathy to understand, but is quite capable of answering:

Why is it so easy to obtain and abuse OxyContin in this country, but so difficult to obtain and abuse the medicine that heals those who are addicted to it?

Should the Eagle-Tribune care to consider the answer to that question, they will find the truth about where the ultimate responsibility for prescription drug abuse lies.


The original Op/Ed piece resides at The Eagle-Tribune.

The Web is Addicted

I recently wanted to see if there were other blogs out there from people like me who were recovering from Oxy. Inserting the word "OxyContin" into a few search engines and blog directories convinced me that this was futile. There are hundreds, if not thousands of listings for online sales of every imaginable drug, but very few legitimate listings from blogs that discuss the addiction and dependency issues associated with opiates.

What a wasteland the Internet is.

Back when I was getting high on Oxy, I had considered attempting to buy dope online, but I never got around to it, and frankly, I was really skeptical. I still am. I can't imagine that it would be so easy to buy dope online, and my guess is that 99% of the sites that offer to sell narcotics are illigitimate. After all, if you send $300 to some site that was supposed to send you a bucketfull of Oxys, and they don't come through, who are you going to call? The cops? The FBI?

I can hear it now. "Yes, officer, I'd like to report a crime."

"Uh yes, sir. Please tell us about it. How were you victimized?"

"Well officer, I ordered a couple of handfuls of OxyContin online, without a prescription, and they never sent me anything."

"Hmmm. I see. Where are you right now? Don't move. We'll be right over."

Maybe I am naive. Perhaps this is how most people get their illicit drugs nowdays. I don't believe it though. If it is that easy for people to get their hands on Oxy, then the world will certainly go down the tubes. If all one has to do is offer up a credit card online, then run to the mailbox to get high, we're going to be in trouble.

It can't be that easy. Can it?

When I was doing drugs, I had to run down to Mexico or wait for some profiteer to score. It was challenging, difficult and frustrating. If all the web offers for drugs are real, and it is so easy to get drugs online, then I am going to start buying stock in treatment centers.

In the meantime, all of those stupid ads that scream out "Buy Drugs Online" keep getting more frequent and more annoying.

Can't you techno-geeks rid the web of its addiction to those ads?

Getting Off Suboxone

I get a lot of emails from people who want to know what it is like to quit taking Suboxone. I've dedicated two long chapters to the topic in my book, but until it's published, here are some thoughts about what I learned and what it was like.

What follows is my reply to a recent email, the text of which follows:

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Dear Danny:

Here's some of what it was like for me to quit Suboxone.

1. The first time I tried to get off Suboxone, I failed. I tapered from 4mg for about a month, then 2mg for 10 days. I went through some serious withdrawals (Christmas Day 2006...a massacre). I went back to the doctor and we decided to stretch it out on 2 mg for a longer period.

Lesson: You might not make it the first time. You can always go back if you have to.

2. After the Christmas mess, I stayed on 2mg throughout February 2007. I would experiment with skipping days. It worked. When I got down to 2mg I would occasionally skip a day. It was o.k. I made it. I also chopped the 2mg tablets in half. I would try it for a day or so, and if I started feeling bad, I would take 2mg and then get on with trying the halves the next day.

Lesson: Keep trying to go lower. Give yourself room to go back up if you need it.

3. I watched my bottle of Suboxone halves begin to dwindle. I was amazed that a chunk of a pill smaller than a breadcrumb was necessary to keep me normal. However, at some point I realized I couldn't just keep taking breadcrumbs. On March 9th, 2007 I ran out.

Lesson: Eventually you're going to have to quit taking it. If you really want off, you got to prepare.

4. Amazingly, when I ran out, I felt fine for two and a half days. The withdrawals kicked in at 36 hours, but (and this is important) it wasn't nearly as bad as it had been when I tried to quit during Christmas when I was at 2mg. I felt really tired, weak, and had all the typical symptoms, however, it was nothing compared to a full-blown withdrawal from what you might experience with Oxy or heroin. I took Clonidine for the first three days and it helped. It made it easier to sleep and easier to get up. This took place on a weekend, so I tried to take it easy.

Lesson: It's not as bad as you might think. Clonidine helps. Take it easy.

5.After seven days, I still felt weak. The withdrawal from Suboxone is long and tedious, but it isn't so bad that I felt like I needed to go back on it again. Frankly, it took a couple of months before I really felt completely better, and to be sure, I think that there are still some after effects that I am experiencing four months later (occasional sleep disruption, occasional digestive issues, low energy).

Lesson: Be patient. You'll get better a little bit each day.

6. Now for the good part. When I was actively using and I'd try to quit Oxy, I'd go through withdrawals for maybe three or four days, and the whole time, all I could think about was that I wanted some damned Oxy. When I quit Suboxone, I didn't realize it at first, but one day it hit me: "Even though I don't feel 100% better, what's weird is that I don't crave Oxy." If you've taken Suboxone, you know that you don't get high on it, and the fact of the matter is not only that I didn't crave Oxy, I didn't crave Suboxone either.

Lesson: There's a reward at the end of all of this. Your craving probably won't be there.

Once I got off the Suboxone, the seriously weirdest part was that I didn't want to go out and get drugs. I hadn't taken any opiates the entire 18 months I was on Suboxone, so I was completely removed from that whole scene.

I'm feeling a lot better now, but there's still more for me to do. Most of it has to do with realizing that I am no longer hooked and that now I need to find things to do that make my life worthwhile. If you've used opiates, you know that when you are high, there isn't anything that can bother you. Unfortunately, it is those things that we're avoiding when were high that will still be there when we're not. Here's what I am searching for: finding the contentment I felt when I was high, without being high. Ultimately, I guess that is what humans have been searching for since the beginning of time.

For technical information on quitiing Suboxone, I suggest taking a look at this article that my physician gave me from the following journal:

"Burprenorphine:how to use it right."
Johnson RE, Strain EC, Amass L.
Journal: "Drug and Alcohol Dependence." 2003; 70:S59-S77.

Good luck tapering off Suboxone. Lastly, remember that I am not qualified to give anyone medical advice. I am not a physician and nothing that I write should be construed as medical advice. Anyone who is looking for medical advice should consult a medical doctor.

Your Bud,

Gus

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Hi gus

Im sure you get a lot of emails asking how you got off the suboxone. Im stuck and scared. I search all over the internet just to find horror story after horror story. Ive been on it about 14 mos now--4-6mg a day. Im having trouble tapering and i want to be off this now.

Danny