[Note:  This posting is a continuation of a report on the development of a civics unit of study.  This unit is directing students to formulate informed positions on the opioid epidemic.  Presently, this development, in real time, is reporting a set of factoids on a particular drug which is part of this epidemic.]

The next class of opioids this development will address is Oxycodone, including a derivative of this drug, OxyContin.  When it comes to recreational use of opioids among Americans, these two forms constitute the most used.  According to the US Department of Health and Human Services report, circa 11 million Americans consume an oxycodone drug for recreational or non-medical reasons.  As such, Oxycodone accounts for a large portion of this epidemic.

          Oxycodone has its own history in the US.  It starts in 1939 when it was first made available on these shores.  But it took until 1970s before US authorities, in the Food and Drug Administration, to deem this drug as having a high probability of being abused and potentially causing addiction.  This government agency did this by classifying it as a Schedule II drug.  As the short history – provided in previous postings – indicates, the drug company, Purdue Pharma, began an active campaign to popularize a form of the drug in 1996.  To get around the addictive quality of the drug, this company introduced OxyContin. 

This “controlled release” formulation of the drug was meant to make the resulting product less apt to be addictive and the FDA approved it.  Unfortunately, it did not take a long time before consumers learned how to derive a purer oxycodone drug by simply crushing the controlled release tablets.  They then could consume the derived drug by various ways:  swallowing, inhaling, or injecting it.  Any of these modes renders a very powerful opioid.

The derived drug, when consumed, results in an upgraded “high” that is described as being “morphine-like.”  Purdue’s eventual testing in 1995 demonstrated how users, by crushing their product, could extract a 68% oxycodone.  All these developments cost Purdue dearly.  Eventually, in 2007, the company paid a $600 million fine for making false claims about their product specifically regarding its risks.  Then, in 2010, the company issued a newer version.

In that year, Purdue introduced a reformulated OxyContin.  By using a polymer, they made their pills very difficult to crush or dissolve.  In turn, this made the product significantly less apt of being abused.  Predictably, documented use of the drug declined slightly.

Despite this development, in 2012, Canada’s government decided to strip OxyContin from its approved drug list.  In 2017, the FDA requested the producers of oxymorphone, an injectable form of the opioid, to remove it from the domestic market.  The agency determined that the risk of the drug is greater than its benefits.  This marked a turning point for the FDA since it was the first time it issued such a request due to fears of abuse.

The next posting will look at fentanyl.

“Opioid Crisis Fast Facts,” CNN Library, June 16, 2018, accessed June 25, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2017/09/18/health/opioid-crisis-fast-facts/index.html.

Art Van Zee, “The Promotion and Marketing of OxyContin: Commercial Triumph, Public Health Tragedy,” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 99, no. 2, (February 2009), 221-2273.

Ibid.

Barry Meier, “In Guilty Plea, OxyContin Maker to Pay $600 Million,” The New York Times, May 10, 2007, accessed June 29, 2018, https://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/10/business/11drug-web.html?mtrref=www.google.com&gwh=5EB54309CD06FBA620248E850CC5CC0B&gwt=pay.