NEWS: The Sunday Telegraph - 17/06/07 'Celebrity drug hits Sydney'

Celebrity drug hits Sydney
By Clair Weaver
June 17, 2007 12:00am

A POWERFUL drug nicknamed "hillbilly heroin" is spilling onto the streets of Sydney and hooking a new breed of addicts.

Experts warn oxycodone is so addictive that it is usually only prescribed by doctors as a strong painkiller for the terminally ill.

However, it is growing as a cheap and more potent alternative to heroin, which is in short supply in Australia.

At the Medically Supervised Injecting Centre (MSIC) in Kings Cross, records show oxycodone and morphine have surpassed illegal drugs like heroin, cocaine and "ice'' to become the most commonly used substances over the past year.

Classed as pharmaceutical opioids, they have quadrupled in use since 2005 and now account for about 40 per cent of visits to the injecting room.

Users crush up pills to remove slow-release binders before snorting or injecting the powder to get a bigger "hit''.

An overdose can be deadly or cause permanent damage.

Sold under the brand name OxyContin, oxycodone has wreaked havoc in the US, where celebrity users have been forced to seek rehabilitation.

Reported high-profile users include Lindsay Lohan, Jack Osbourne, Courtney Love and Winona Ryder. Hundreds of others have died.

Under the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS), a packet of 20 or 60 pills costs $4.90 with a doctor's prescription and comes with the warning "the risk of drug dependence is high''.

Each 80mg pill fetches from $25 to $50 on the street.

Patients who would receive legitimate prescriptions of the medication include those who are dying of cancer, have terminal HIV or suffer from chronic pain, doctors say.

The Sydney MSIC report for June, 2007, which was released last Thursday, noted the increase in oxycodone and morphine use.

"From July, 2005 there was a marked increase in the number and proportion of injections involving opioids other than heroin and a corresponding decline in visits to inject heroin,'' it states.

"From April, 2006 to May, 2007 the use of heroin and other opioids was comparable.''

This means that between 2000 and 3000 visits to the centre each month are for oxycodone or morphine.

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a lot of people have switched over from H, cos morph/oxys are less than half the price of H usually

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