Opana abuse in USA overtakes OxyContin

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A masked man walked into a Fort Wayne, Ind., drugstore early one Saturday morning, approached the pharmacy counter and, realizing it was closed, left. An hour later, wearing the same mask, he entered the store across the street, handed the pharmacist a list of drugs scrawled on a napkin and threatened to kill the pharmacist if he didn't get them, police say.

Police were waiting, having been notified by employees of the first account. As the suspect dashed from the store, prescription painkillers clutched in his hand, a police officer caught him.

The June 2 incident was the 11th pharmacy robbery in Fort Wayne this year, an unusually high number for this city of 250,000 people, police spokeswoman Raquel Foster said. In almost every case, the robbers asked specifically for Opana, the trade name for oxymorphone, a powerful prescription painkiller.
"A few years ago, it was OxyContin. Now it's Opana," Foster said. "These people are desperate to get it."

Prescription drug abuse is the nation's fastest-growing drug problem, the White House Office on National Drug Policy says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has classified the misuse of these powerful painkillers as an epidemic, with 1.3 million emergency room visits in 2010, a 115% increase since 2004. Overdose deaths on opioid pain relievers surpassed deaths from heroin and cocaine for the first time in 2008.

This rise of Opana abuse illustrates the adaptability of drug addicts and the never-ending challenge facing law enforcement authorities, addiction specialists and pharmaceutical companies. Just when they think they have curbed abuse and stopped trafficking of one drug, another fills the void. Opana's dangerous new popularity arose when OxyContin's manufacturer changed its formula to deter users from crushing, breaking or dissolving the pill so it could be snorted or injected to achieve a high.

"It's almost like a game of Whac-A-Mole. You get a handle on OxyContin; they switch to Opana," said Jeffrey Reynolds, executive director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence in Mineola, N.Y. "My guess is it will be something new tomorrow."

As a new, harder-to-abuse Opana formulation replaces the old formula, police and addiction experts expect heroin to fill that void.

"They will adapt the same way drug traffickers or criminals will adapt to a new law. They are going to find a way to satisfy their addiction," said DEA Special Agent Gary Boggs of the Office of Diversion Control. "When they either can't get those particular pharmaceuticals or can't afford them, they now gravitate to heroin."

For years, drug abusers favored an extended-release version of OxyContin, a narcotic painkiller, for a powerful high. Over the past decade, its abuse was so prevalent that the drug became a household name.

Drug abusers could crush or dissolve the pill's time-release coating to get the full punch of the opioid oxycodone. But Purdue Pharma, OxyContin's manufacturer, reformulated it in August 2010, making it nearly impossible to crush, dissolve and inject. By the beginning of 2011, more than 95% of prescriptions were being filled with reformulated OxyContin, Purdue spokesman James Heins said.

Though people could still abuse the drug by taking larger quantities, some addicts craved the injectable high.

As the supply of the old formulation dwindled, panicked drug abusers flooded Internet chat rooms in attempts to find ways to outsmart the new technology, from pounding it with hammers to soaking it in acid, said Sgt. John McGuire, head of the prescription drug diversion unit at the Louisville Metro Police Department.

"At first, people tried to defeat it," McGuire said. "Then, Opana started to pop up like crazy."

Opana ER, an extended-release painkiller containing oxymorphone, came on the market in 2006. Endo Pharmaceuticals, the manufacturer, completed development of a crush-resistant pill in 2010 but did not get approval from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) until late last year, said Endo senior vice president Blaine Davis.

On June 14, the FDA moved the old Opana formulation to its list of discontinued drugs. Davis said he doesn't know how much remains on the market.

Meanwhile, the Opana problem grew swiftly and sharply, particularly in several states where prescription drug abuse is deeply ingrained:

•Nassau County, N.Y., issued a health alert in 2011 when the New York City suburb saw the first signs of an alarming spike in Opana use. Medicaid data for the county showed prescriptions for extended-release Opana had increased 45% in six months. Since then, Reynolds said, the problem has worsened. "Opana has emerged as the key drug of choice," said Reynolds, who estimates that 80% of the 600 people wh•A DEA intelligence briefing noted increases in Opana uses in Pennsylvania, including Philadelphia, and Delaware. In New Castle, Del., the DEA said, drug users had switched from uncrushable OxyContin to the crushable oxymorphone "for ease of use," pushing the price for a 40 mg tablet to $65. A tablet costs $4 to $8 when purchased legitimately at a pharmacy.

•In Ohio, authorities in Akron, Cincinnati and Athens noted surges in Opana as a replacement for OxyContin, the state's Substance Abuse Monitoring Network reported earlier this year. One unnamed drug abuser in Youngstown told network monitors "no one wants the new oxys now that (Purdue) change the makeup of them," the Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network noted in its January surveillance report. Opana 40 mg tablets sell for $60 to $70 each, outpacing the once-popular old formulation OxyContin, which now sells for at least $1 a milligram, the report said. The less popular new formulation of OxyContin 40 mg sells for $20 to $30, the report said.

The spike is particularly pronounced in Kentucky. In 2010, toxicology tests identified oxymorphone, the key ingredient in Opana, in 2% of the state's overdose cases, said Van Ingram, executive director of the Kentucky Office of Drug Control Policy. By 2011, oxymorphone was present in the blood of 23% of overdose victims.

The numbers so alarmed Ingram that he asked the CDC to do an epidemiological study to pinpoint where the drug was coming from and why use had increased. Ingram is waiting to hear from the CDC, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Ingram fears the problem will get worse this year. "I don't think we've hit the apex yet," he said. "We're just now seeing how big this is."
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read more @ http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-07-10/opana-painkiller-addiction/56137086/1
 
No shit. What did they expect, that people would just stop getting high on opiates?

At least they seem to be acknowledging how utterly futile prohibition is. You could make it absolutely impossible to abuse painkillers in any manner tomorrow, and you'd just have a massive pile of heroin addicts on your hands. You can't reformulate heroin.
 
I doubt Opana will become even half as big as OxyContin did. There are a lot of factors as to why and the number 1 factor is the fact it is an IV drug. I think heroin use will rise, with morphine taking the reigns on the prescription front.
 
Seems pretty obvious this was going to happen, opioids are way too popular for their abuse to just go away because you reformulate one drug. I would be surprised if morphine and dilaudid abuse had not also went up since the 'OP's' came out.
 
kokaino said:
I doubt Opana will become even half as big as OxyContin did. There are a lot of factors as to why and the number 1 factor is the fact it is an IV drug. I think heroin use will rise, with morphine taking the reigns on the prescription front.
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I agree but it's only due to the fact that oxycontin was much much much longer a non-tamperproof drug than opana will ever be. Neither one of them are even half as popular as roxicet 30's are now since both can't be crushed, snorted, or IV'd without a good amount of work.

Heroin use will (and is) on the rise and will continue that way as long as highschoolers aren't getting pills to snort. Tamperproofing hasn't done ANYTHING good since majority of people who use will still find a way, or they will switch to heroin. Which in no way at all is good. The only thing it did good was deter overdosing (which I'm glad) but again, it is only going to make roxicet 30's and heroin more popular. No kid wants to "Eat" the pills.
 
shimazu said:
I've never even seen an Opana let alone taken one.
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Then you've really missed out. An opana 40mg is probably 3 good bags of dope or 5 mediocre bags. They got expensive once everyone found out what they were though. I paid VERY little for mine. I can't post prices but we'll say it was in the single digits for awhile.

The only poor thing is, is that they really really really mess up your tolerance. By the time I was done getting high on them (I was buying 100-150 per month just to have them) I was doing 7 at a time. Nothing EVER messed up my tolerance like opana's did. The euphoria is better than dope, but not quite oxy's. It's got more sedating effects than oxy's, but not quite as much as dope. They were my all time favorite drug.

Too bad they are tamper proof now. They should have generics soon and I recommend you definitely get yourself a few.
 
Where i live in Atlantic Canada hydromorphone in the form of dilaudid and hydromorph contins has become way more popular since oxycontin was taken off the market. We don't have oxymorphone here in Canada unfortunately. Though there are still oxy users who just switched to oxyneo or oxycodone IR's (a much better choice to begin with) hydromorphone, methadone and morphine are filling the void. Heroin is also around alot more but many people here seem to prefer pharms over heroin. Not to mention the outrageous cost of heroin here :p

Since i was never a big fan of oxycodone to begin with this hasn't affected me at all really. As long as they don't screw with morphine and dilaudid i don't really give a fuck. So the trend of heroin and various pharms taking over oxycontin seems to be everywhere pretty much.
 
Yea, back in the early 70's they discontinued Numorphan 10mg pills because the ease of breaking them down into a I.V. form. It seems that all Immediate Release opiates, from morphine, oxycodone, to oxymorphone will still be able to be I.V.'d. I know oxymorphone is the morphine of oxycodone. I just hope they don't take them off the market like they did Pallidone (hydromorphone E.R.). Seems like if one couldn't crush it, it would just come out of ones body without fully dissolving. Oh well, if it isn't one thing it's another. Opana comes in 5mg and 10mg instant release formulations.
 
writer isn't quite on the ball. opana was huge. the only pills commonly sold as a street drug anymore are the roxy 30s--which are now more expensive thanks to opana ER turning into rock hard skittles.
 
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hydroazuanacaine your so ridht im on methadone tretment ,klinklife,i usedroxys *snip no prices...* are u fkn kiddin me
no opanas i read alot but never had the pleasure mb someday but *snip no prices* a pill fk thak i dont think so
 
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