New development to make prescription drug 'addict proof'
Opiate-based painkiller oxycodone, also known as ‘Hillbilly Heroin’, claims hundreds of lives every year.
In Australia, it has been implicated as the major cause of death in nearly 500 cases.
Now, a new form of the tablets is being introduced.
The pills cannot be crushed or mixed with water, making them much harder for addicts to break down and inject.
Rap superstar Eminem almost died after becoming addicted to oxycodone tablets.
“I don't know at what point exactly it started to be a problem, I just remember liking it more and more,” he said.
7News Investigations interviewed several drug users at Sydney’s suburb of Kings Cross one weekday morning.
“I would say 90 per cent of Kings Cross are on ‘Oxy’, or a good 85 per cent, of users,” one drug user said.
"(I last time had an Oxycontin) probably about 12 hours ago... I was just about to go in and have another one,” drug user ‘Yoshi’ said.
Yoshi is one of hundreds of users addicted to oxycodone.
Dr George O’Neil in Perth is treating a growing number of people addicted to prescription opioids.
For nearly 20 years, Dr George O'Neil has been treating drug addicts at his Freshstart clinic in Perth.
At first, all the opiate users he saw were injecting heroin.
Increasingly, they've switched to these tablets.
“Opioid is the main cause of sudden death in young people,” said Dr O’Neil.
“I think it's estimated a 180 per cent increase, but it is a very significant increase in use,” he said.
Oxycontin is a pharmaceutical version of heroin and is prescribed to people with chronic pain that lasts for three months or longer.
It has also become one of the most misused prescription drugs in the world.
“I'm not out there shooting heroin, I'm not out there… you know, putting coke up my nose, I'm not smoking crack... you're struggling with the argument of, do you have a problem or do you not have a problem, can you control it or can you not?” Eminem said.
Somehow, Oxycodone has become a drug of choice on the street.
“Introducing the new medication, you'd have to replace all the other supplies of Oxycontin and its going to be years before we know if it really works,” Dr O’Neil said.
The reformulated “Addict-proof” tablets being rolled out in pharmacies across Australia.
The new medication is Oxycontin tablets with a twist, which are made with polymers that do not crush, making them impossible to break down and put into a needle.
“Yeah, I got stuck with buying one yesterday,” one drug user said.
“You can't inject them, they don't mix up at all and if you keep mixing them up they blow up into a marshmallow and they disperse into a gel.”
One reason they are traded is their value on the street.
One box of 28 tablets will sell to someone with a prescription and a pensioner card for $6 for 28 tablets.
On the street, one tablet will sell for $50 or more.
It is not clear how much Oxycontin is on the streets or how it is being sourced.
“If they seem a bit aggressive, we'll just say, ‘we haven't received the stock today, you can come back tomorrow when we have the delivery’, usually they just go away and don't come back,” Pharmacist Mohammed Afifi said.
Mr Afifi often deals with ‘doctor-shopper’ drug users who travel from GP to GP trying to get prescriptions for opioids like Oxycontin.
“If they don't live close by and the doctor is somewhere else, a lot of the time we'll just call and confirm with the doctor, sometimes there's been stolen pads,” Mr Afifi said.
New figures from Victoria have revealed 374 people died of a drug overdose in the last year and of those, prescription drugs contributed to 310 deaths.Oxycodone was the key cause in 60 of deaths.
Dr Larance is part of the new National Opioid Medication Abuse Deterrent (NOMAD) study investigating the new forms of prescription opioids designed make it harder for users to abuse them.
“More recently, we've seen increases in oxycodone-related deaths,” Dr Larance said.
“Currently they account for 15 to 20 per cent of the overall opioid-related deaths and heroin is accounting for a much larger proportion.”
She stresses heroin is still the big problem on the streets and these new, harder to inject tablets could drive some users back to heroin.
“It's really important to bear in mind a tablet won't fix the problem, and a reformulation of a tablet certainly won't replace good clinical practice… good clinical practice in terms of prescribing these medications and the careful matching of patients and medication choice,” Dr Larance said.
The new Oxycontin tablets have deterred the drug users 7News Investigations spoke to.
“That’s okay because I'm not using as much as I used to anyway,” drug user Yoshi said.
“With the new ones coming out, no I don't [think I will use Oxycontin]... at the moment I'm on the Methadone program as well, so I want to try to get off drugs altogether,” another drug user said.
If you need help with addiction or mental health issues, please contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or visit their website.
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