Pubdate: Thu, 30 Aug 2001
Source: Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)
Copyright: 2001 Richmond Newspapers Inc.
Contact:  http://www.timesdispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/365
Author: Rex Bowman, Times-Dispatch Staff Writer

OXYCONTIN MAKER HIRES HELP FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT

The Connecticut company that makes the powerful painkiller OxyContin plans 
to hire law-enforcement officials from around the nation to work with 
police grappling with the widespread abuse of the drug, company officials 
said yesterday.

Some immediately derided the move as an attempt by Purdue Pharma L.P. to 
put its public critics on its private payroll. Others called it an effort 
to burnish the company's image in the wake of fatal overdoses and crime 
linked to OxyContin abuse.

"I think it's more of a public relations thing than anything else," said 
Dennis Lee, prosecutor in Tazewell County, the epicenter of the "Oxy" abuse 
problem that has gripped Southwest Virginia since 1998.

But Dr. J. David Haddox, senior medical director at Purdue, said critics 
are wrong: The company hopes to hire a total of seven law-enforcement 
officers with expertise in drug abuse by the end of next year in an attempt 
to better understand how abusers are getting a drug that legitimate pain 
sufferers hail as their salvation.

"We want to be able to collect information and experiences from police 
officers from around the nation," said Haddox.

In Virginia, Purdue already has hired Landon Gibbs, head of the Virginia 
State Police drug diversion unit in Roanoke. Gibbs starts his job with 
Purdue on Tuesday.

Haddox said Gibbs is the first hire of what will be a law-enforcement 
liaison and education team that should include another six police officers 
by the end of next year. "It may turn out that we need more, but six is 
what we're going to go for right now."

The team will report to Haddox, who also heads the company's public 
relations team, which has spent the last year emphasizing that the medical 
benefits of the powerful opioid OxyContin dwarf the problems associated 
with its illicit use.

OxyContin, introduced five years ago, was designed to ease moderate to 
severe chronic pain, such as that suffered by patients with terminal 
cancer. But abusers have found they can circumvent the pill's 12-hour time 
release by crushing it and snorting it, or by injecting it. Once addicted, 
abusers have turned to crime to acquire the drug, straining the limited 
resources of law-enforcement agencies in areas such as Southwest Virginia 
and rural Maine.

Abuse of the drug has prompted calls for more regulation, tougher prison 
sentences and new ways to track prescriptions. In the wake of the 
publicity, Purdue has developed a tamper-proof prescription pad, stopped 
distributing its most powerful OxyContin pill of 160 mg, curtailed 
shipments to Mexico and instructed its representatives not to sell the drug 
to pharmacists they think won't act responsibly.

James Heins, spokesman for Purdue, said Haddox's team will not only give 
the company more insight into how abusers obtain the drug, but will also 
help the company explain the drug's widespread benefit to law-enforcement 
agencies.

"That's part of our whole initiative," he said, "to work with 
law-enforcement to make sure they see pain management from our point of 
view, and we see drug diversion from their point of view."

Emmitt Yeary, an Abingdon lawyer who has filed a $5.2 billion class-action 
lawsuit against Purdue Pharma in federal court in Big Stone Gap, called the 
company's use of law-enforcement officials "a disgrace."

"It's a public relations ploy, and I think it's another hypocritical 
gesture of denial on their part that aggravates the situation. They're 
continuing to say the problem is the abusers, when they created this demon 
drug and they've created the victims," said Yeary, who filed the suit on 
behalf of eight Virginia residents who say they've suffered as a result of 
OxyContin addiction.

But Gibbs, of the Virginia State Police, said he would not have accepted 
the job with Purdue unless he was convinced the company is trying to do the 
right thing.

"We discussed this, and this is not going to be anything but a real program 
to help law enforcement prevent diversion," he said.

Gibbs is the second high-profile enforcement official to join Purdue. Jay 
McCloskey, former U.S. attorney for Maine, was one of the first to 
recognize his state had a problem with Oxy abuse, and he became an 
outspoken critic. Now, though, he works as a part-time consultant for the 
company, Haddox said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom