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OxyContin


The abuse of OxyContin has led to hundreds of deaths across the country. Emergency room visits related to OxyContin have almost doubled since 1996 when OxyContin first hit the market; medical examiner reports with deaths associated with OxyContin jumped 93 percent between 1997 and 1998 (Spake 56). In 2000, the Drug Enforcement Administration received 291 coroners" reports of OxyContin related death.
             Purdue Pharma officials as well as members of the Drug Enforcement Administration are now taking steps to stop the abuse of this drug; the DEA cites this as being their first effort to fight the misuse of a specific prescription drug. In Virginia, a state where OxyContin is highly consumed, the rural town of Pulaski has become the first town in the country to use a fingerprint security system to keep track of the people who receive OxyContin legitimately. The Police Department in Pulaski will provide the six pharmacies in the town with fingerprint kits. Pharmacists will ask customers who are requesting OxyContin to dip their finger in invisible ink and then stamp it on a special piece of paper. The prints will then be attached to the prescriptions and kept at the pharmacy. If officers find out a prescription has been stolen they can then identify a suspect from the prints.
             West Virginia, Mississippi, and Florida have also been chosen by the Drug Enforcement Administration to begin a pilot-monitoring program aimed at stopping OxyContin abuse. The program will be a computer-monitoring program that monitors patients with access to the potent drug. In Kentucky, the state where the number of OxyContin related deaths is highest, a task force has been created to address the ever-growing problems associated with OxyContin abuse. The primary tool of Kentucky's task force is the state's database of controlled-drug prescriptions, The Kentucky All Schedule Electronic Reporting System. It's used to track prescription trends and stop "doctor shopping," which is when abusers of certain drugs go from one doctor to the next complaining of symptoms and ailments in an attempt to get prescriptions for narcotics.


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