Pubdate: Wed, 11 Jun 2003
Source: Inverness Oran, The (CN NS)
Copyright: 2003 Inverness Communications Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.oran.ca/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2353
Author: Frank Macdonald
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone)

OXYCONTIN: "RELATIVELY CHEAP" HIGH

The provincial press has been having a field day with the use of
Oxycontin on Cape Breton Island. I never heard of Oxycontin until it
began making headlines a few months ago as "hillbilly heroin," the
drug of choice among Cape Breton addicts, spawning robberies,
burglaries and a street drug economy to rival Columbia, or at least
British Columbia.

What I learned from the newspapers is that Oxycontin, a powerful
painkiller used in the treatment of terminally ill cancer patients, is
prescribed by more doctors in Cape Breton than anywhere else in Nova
Scotia. What I didn't learn from the same news stories, but know from
other sources, is that Cape Breton has the highest rate of cancer in
Canada, so the newspaper stories didn't leave me with the impression
that doctors in Cape Breton are co-conspirators in this illegal trade.
Other readers, unaware of the medical facts, may have drawn different
conclusions from the references to doctors, prescriptions and street
drug popularity.

One of the crimes on the increase as a result of Oxycontin is the
burgling of homes during funerals. Cape Breton Regional Police warn
that Oxy users read the obituary columns for deaths caused by cancer,
and then, knowing what time the funeral will be held, break into the
homes of those being buried in search of Oxycontin. The regional
police didn't say whether or not they use the same technique, read the
obituary pages for potential break-ins, then stake out the likely
houses for the hour or two when the funeral is taking place, but I
assume they do.

Again, however, these funeral burglaries are reported as if this was a
stroke of Cape Breton drug addict genius instead of a criminal
procedure that has been in use for as long as newspapers have been
printing obituaries. Break-ins during funerals have long been a
world-wide source of antiques, jewelry, cash and drugs. It is hardly
new even to Cape Breton. During my own grandfather's funeral in the
mid 1940s in Inverness, his home was broken into and stripped of
bedding, dishes, musical instruments and other heirlooms, and the town
didn't even have a newspaper at the time.

But the part about this news item that I really don't grasp is the bit
about "hillbilly heroin." It is called that, according to one report,
because Oxycontin is popular on the street "for its relatively cheap
buzz." The street price ranges from $40 to $80 a pill, depending on
potency.

Relatively cheap!

I don't know what hillbillies in other parts of the world think of as
"relatively cheap," but a vial of this vile "high" is the equivalent
of a down payment on a small house around here. No wonder the drug and
addiction of choice on Cape Breton Island, despite media enchantment
with the darker romance of drugs like Oxycontin, is the culturally
acceptable abuse of alcohol. ("Oh, he only hits her when he's
drinking!" "I drive better with a few drinks in me because my senses
are sharper.")

That there is a street drug problem with Oxycontin is evident from its
associated crimes which have threatened or endangered lives, but
pondering the addictive nature of a drug that can drive people to acts
of violent madness to obtain, why is there such deep resistence to the
medical use of marijuana? Considering that perhaps half the people in
Canada's hospitals today have their pain managed by some opium
derivative, or by some powerful and addictive pharmaceutical
concoction like Oxycontin, why is the lesser evil banned on pain of
imprisonment?

In the public debate on the issue, many police forces perceive
marijuana as a serious drug problem while most politicians, the public
and the courts are leaning more and more towards leniency. Many in the
medical community have adopted an "if it will help" attitude towards
marijuana, which one Cape Breton medical official criticized, not for
its potential usefulness but for the fact that, "I can't imagine a
worse way of delivering medication than smoking it."

The wisdom of using marijuana as a medicine will always be questioned,
I suppose, until the pharmaceutical industry gets to patent it,
telling us then that it is now an official medication and not the
reefer madness that inspired young women to throw off their clothes at
Woodstock and dance in the rain. We will be safe from all that
foolishness, unfortunately, when the legal drug cartels are handling
marijuana as well as Oxycontin.

In the meantime, however, I suspect most Cape Breton hillbillies will
still opt for beer, black rum or a still in the hills, a good thing,
too, because rarely do alcoholics break into the home of the deceased
person. They go to the funeral instead, knowing that if there is any
liquor involved, it will make its mournful appearance at the family
reception following burial.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake