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This edition of our Cubic Health Monthly newsletter highlights changes that are coming in the formulation of OxyContin, changes that are intended to make the drug more difficult to abuse by addicts. It’s amazing that in a span of less than a decade we have gone from being concerned about a the misuse of a number of different prescription pain medications (Percocet, Tylenol 3, Demerol, MS Contin, and the list goes on) to focusing almost all of our attention to one incredibly popular medication, OxyContin.
When you speak to patients with chronic pain conditions, they swear by it. I just had a conversation last week with a pharmacist colleague who now has to take the medication twice daily to deal with chronic back pain following very significant back surgery. However, when you read online that users around the world have already found ways to circumvent new formulations of the drug, it’s very discouraging. Narcotic drug abuse is an epidemic in Canada.
This brings me back to an 18 year old patient I interacted with one weekend earlier this year while I was working in the pharmacy. As soon as we met, he shook my hand, engaged me in conversation, and by all accounts he seemed like a very articulate, polite teenager. I’ll never forget his question. He showed me a pill and asked me if this was the new formulation of OxyContin 80mg. Of course it wasn’t, because at the time, there was only the existing formulation of the product. He told me that his dealer mentioned that it was a much better, newer version of the 80mg strength of the drug.
I told him I would tell him what it was if he told me how much the drug cost on the street. He agreed. He told me that tablet would fetch between $50 – $80 depending on the quantity purchased and the forces of supply and demand on the street. Not a bad return for a tablet that would cost a plan sponsor less than $4.
We need to get serious about putting in controls to ensure narcotic prescriptions are being used appropriately by people who really need the medication. It’s a shame we have begun to develop a generation of prescription drug abusers that are starting at a young age, and that governments, regulatory associations, and claims processors/plan administrators haven’t taken this issue more seriously. That has to change, and it has to change immediately.
Off went the 18 year old with the tablet in his hand that he had brought in to me. The bad news for him: his pill wasn’t worth $80, but the good news: I had prevented him from taking a blood pressure medication by accident.
Mike Sullivan, RPh, BSP, MBA
President
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