Symptoms Experienced During Detox

If you're planning to withdraw from Oxycontin, you made a wise move. But before doing so, here are a few things to expect during your detox.

• Exhaustion: Feeling tired or fatigued
• Sweats: Hot or cold sweating throughout the day
• Heart palpitations
• Joint or muscle ache
• Constant yawning
• Nausea: The individual may feel very queasy and even experience bouts of vomiting
• Coughing: loud, uncontrollable coughing
• Diarrhea
• Insomnia: Individual may be very restless in the days after he stops taking OxyContin.
• Depression and anxiety: The two most common psychological effects of detox from OxyContin.

Pharmacies Increase as Robber's Target

There have been almost twice as many pharmacy robberies this year in Columbus as bank robberies, and police say OxyContin is the main target.

As of yesterday, there have been a record 56 pharmacy robberies this year compared with 29 bank robberies.

"It's just that the street value of OxyContin is so high; it's just become a lucrative target," Columbus Police Sgt. James Jardine said.

The highly additive pain medication sells on the street for as much as $80 a pill, Jardine said.

On Thursday night, three gunmen entered a West Side Walgreens before closing, and one of them went to the back of the store and bent a metal barrier in front of the pharmacy.

The man pointed a gun at the pharmacist and demanded all of the OxyContin, police say.

Earlier in the week, a father and son were arrested in connection with seven area pharmacy robberies. Ricky Taylor, 47, of Akron, and Tarail Taylor, 24, of Columbus, are accused of stealing OxyContin from mainly chain drugstores, and each has been charged with one count of robbery.

"It does happen in other markets," said Vivika Vergara, a spokeswoman for Walgreens.

"These things are happening, but it's not like an epidemic."

Vergara said Walgreens employees are trained on how to handle robberies. The drugstore chain also has upgraded its video surveillance to capture higher-quality images.

Police are working with pharmacies, Jardine said, to share information and work together to catch criminals.

Jardine said the drug is easy to sell on the streets.

Ernest E. Boyd, executive director of the Ohio Pharmacists Association, said that in the late 1970s robbers sought out amphetamines.

"These things tend to run in cycles," he said. "Sometimes we see lots of forgeries, sometimes we see these."

Back then, however, the robbers likely were junkies who stole the drugs for themselves.

"The dealers are actually doing the robbing now because they see a profit," Jardine said.

This is very sad that robbers would target pharmacies. It seems like nothing is safe anymore and thanks to Oxycontin, it has become much worse.

The Side Effects of Oxycontin

Purdue Pharma has been criticized regarding it's downplaying of the side effects of the drug that they manufactured. Oxycontin, a former miracle drug with deadly effects. OxyContin side effects can range from a dry mouth to death. Derived from an opium seen in other painkillers, OxyContin is much more dangerous because of the high content of oxycodone. Patients have found that they developed OxyContin addiction after receiving prescriptions for the painkiller from their doctor. A drug addiction can be very dangerous because a patient may not realize they have developed an addiction since OxyContin is a legal, prescription drug.

OxyContin side effects can include:

* Constipation
* Confusion
* Dry mouth
* Altered mental state
* Light headed
* Physical addiction
* Dependency
* Death

Todays Generation: Generation Rx

According to a study, around 1 out of 5 teenagers has taken a prescription painkiller such as oxycontin to get high. In fact, the study found that the abuse of prescription painkillers was higher than the abuse of many other illegal drugs including cocaine, crack, Ecstasy, LSD or heroin.

These teens are not aware of the dangers that they are getting themselves into. Here are a few reasons why they prefer these prescription drugs as an alternative to street drugs.

• Close to half of all teens believe using prescription medications to get high is "much safer" than street drugs.
• Close to one-third say prescription painkillers are not addictive.
• When teens were asked why prescription medicine abuse was increasing, "ease of access" was cited as a major factor. The majority cited parents' medicine cabinets, and/or medicine cabinets in the homes of friends, as major access points.

This is a time when we should be more careful with the drugs that we have in our homes. If we can try more natural methods of healing, we won't have to have drugs at home that our children can abuse.

Ten Things Teens and Their Families Should Know about the Dangers of Prescription Painkillers

With the rise in painkiller abuse, here are a list of things you should ponder on. Teens and children are being introduced to recreational use of prescription painkillers at a much younger age than most would expect and are gaining easier access to them. Hopefully, this list can help then make more intelligent and mature decisions.

1. Face the Facts. Denial can prevent you from recognizing a real problem at home. Among youths and adults, non-medical use of prescription painkillers ranked second only to marijuana in illicit drug use according to the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

2. Acknowledge It's All Relative. Legal or not, prescription painkillers are just as harmful as street drugs. Prescription painkillers like Oxycontin are synthetic, the family of drugs from which heroin is derived.

3. Keep an Eye Out for the Graduate. Children as young as 13-15 years old can easily graduate from abusing Oxycontin (a legal opiate drug) to abusing heroin (an illegal opiate drug). The two drugs have similar effects, therefore attracting the same abuse population.

4. Leverage What's Newsworthy. Take advantage of incidents in the news to talk to your family about painkillers. Recently, a teen in Texas was sentenced to probation for providing the painkillers to a friend that died from a resulting overdose. Making an example of a story like this helps to discourage teens from trying drugs.

5. Don't Assume It Can't Be You. You're not necessarily in the clear if your teen is head cheerleader or the class president. Not all kids who abuse prescription drugs are dark, depressed, and troubled. Drug use has become increasingly frequent among a variety of groups of young people.

6. Beware of Emotional Roller-coasters. Changes in a person's normal behavior can be a sign of dependency. Shifts in energy, mood, and concentration may occur as everyday responsibilities become secondary to the need for the relief the prescription provides. Other signs to look for are social withdrawal, desensitized emotions (indifference or disinterest in things that previously brought them pleasure) and increased inactivity.

7. Watch Out for Going Grunge. Personal hygiene may diminish as a result of a drug addiction. Significant weight loss may occur, and glazed eyes may indicate an underlying problem.

8. Become a Micro Manager. If your teen is prescribed a pain-relieving medication, closely monitor the dosage and frequency the drug is ingested. Also, if you or your spouse is prescribed a prescription painkiller, be sure to keep it out of your child's reach and dispose of any extras once you no longer need it.

9. Play it Smart. Listen carefully when your doctor or pharmacist gives instructions for a drug for a family member. Provide your doctor with a complete medical history so he or she is aware of other medications being taken and can prevent a negative interaction. Finally, never increase dosage or the frequency of taking a medication without consulting your physician.

10. Trust Your Instincts. If you suspect that a family member is abusing prescription drugs, consult his or her doctor or seek professional help right away. Medical professionals can refer you to treatment programs but the most important thing is to seek help in a timely matter.

New Version of Oxycontin Sparks Debate

Recently, a new version of the "Hillbilly Heroin" or Oxycontin was presented to the FDA for evaluation. It is said to feature a plastic-like coating that fuses to the tablet, making it harder to crush and turns into a gooey mess if abusers try to inject it.

“These are clearly difficult questions for which there are no easy answers,” Dr. Bob Rappaport, FDA's chief of painkilling drugs, wrote the advisory panel.

Back when Oxycontin was released in 1996, it was hailed as a miracle drug. That was until they discovered that it had a heroin-like effect if crushed, snorted or injected. Since then, there had been a growing number of cases on Oxycontin abuse and addiction as well as deaths.

According to the maker, Purdue Pharma, if someone tries to crush it, the plastic-like coating makes the tablet more likely to break into large fragments instead of a powder, the Stamford, Conn.-based company wrote. The coating renders the drug “a gelatinous mess” when mixed with alcohol or other solvents in attempts to dissolve and inject it, the documents say.

But the FDA cited concerns, including:

Some people who died from OxyContin abuse swallowed the drug without crushing it. Would the new version mislead doctors or patients into thinking OxyContin is less risky than it really is?

Lower doses are set to be reformulated initially, with higher doses converted in the future. Does that increase risk from the higher doses in the meantime?

Moreover, “there is no perfect formulation that can resist all forms of tampering,” FDA's Rappaport wrote. If approved, the new version's label “would have to be carefully crafted so as to avoid the publication of a road map describing how to defeat these changes.”

Hopefully, this new version won't make it into the market. You see, there are no guarantees plus the fact that the formulation is the same, meaning, it will still have the same heroin-like effect once abusers find a way to get around this version.

Easy Access is Reason for Abuse

Recently, a growing number of teens have cited the easy access of drugs such as oxycontin as a reason for the growing number of abuse. They went as far as saying that it's easier to buy oxycontin compared to buying beer.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University asked: "Which is easiest for someone your age to buy: cigarettes, beer, marijuana, or prescription drugs such as Oxycontin, Percocet, Vicodin or Ritalin, without a prescription?" Nineteen percent of teenagers found it easier to purchase prescription drugs than cigarettes, beer or marijuana, compared with 13 percent a year ago. A quarter of the teens said it is easiest to buy marijuana, with 43 percent of 17-year-olds saying they could buy the drug in less than an hour.

It was also found through this study that most parents don't know where their children are at night and identified a group of "problem parents" whose actions increased the abuse of illegal and prescription drugs among 12-to-17-year-olds.

There are many factors to why this is happening but a big part of it are parents who are clueless to what is going on around them. Parents should be the first to look at this issue as well as talk to their children since everything starts at home.

"Kids think that because these are medicines that are prescribed, they are safe," she said. "The problem is that there is very little difference between the amount they take for a high and the amount that causes an overdose."