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NEWS: Daily Telegraph - 'You pay for junkie drug rort'

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jesusisawombat

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You pay for junkie drug rort
Article from: The Daily Telegraph

Exclusive by Janet Fife-Yeomans and Kelvin Bissett

October 27, 2008 12:00am

THE painkiller oxycodone, heavily subsidised by taxpayers, has overtaken heroin as the most popular drug in the Kings Cross injecting room as evidence emerges of a booming black market.

About 8200 of 17,971 drug injections in the room used the tablet painkiller, dubbed "hillbilly heroin". In comparison, just 6110 injections during the same June quarter period involved heroin, figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph reveal.

Medicare Australia figures show taxpayers paid $53.2 million in 2007-08 to subsidise 1.63 million scripts through the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Repatriation Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Seven years ago, in the 2000-01 period, the cost to taxpayers was just $8.5 million for 441,398 scripts.

The drug, a morphine derivative, is available with PBS subsidy to treat severe, disabling pain commonly felt by cancer patients and high level back or tooth ache.

The growing use of oxycodone in the injecting room - triggered by the heroin drought - was an accurate sample of drug trends in the wider community, experts said last night. Tablets were almost certainly obtained through doctor shopping, the practice of attending numerous doctors with fake symptoms to access the drug for personal use or dealing.

Doctor's prescriptions for oxycodone have exploded in recent years, with an undetermined amount of it now finding its way on to the black market, as has occurred in the US. It is dubbed "hillbilly heroin" because it is widely used by poorer residents in parts of the US.

The figures on use in the injecting room were contained in the June quarterly report for the facility, released under Freedom of Information laws.

There is now so much oxycodone in the injecting room that staff hand out filters to users to screen talc and other binding agents as addicts prepare the oral tablet for injection.

Oxycodone is the generic name for the drug available under a number of names, usually OxyContin, OxyNorm or Endone or even in suppository form branded Proladone.

Tablets that cost $1.50 over the counter sell for more than $50 on the black market and drug squad commander Superintendent Greig Newbury said its illegal use was an unprecedented problem.

James Pitts, chief executive officer of the rehabilitation organisation Odyssey House, said there had been a significant increase in the numbers of people seeking help for addiction to oxycodone.

He put the reason down to a heroin drought and because the drug was available from doctors.

"It is a slow-release morphine derivative and people probably have their own particular doctors who prescribe it or they shop around at different doctors," Mr Pitts said. "It is not uncommon to forge prescriptions. People will steal prescription pads."
Click to expand...

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24555410-5001021,00.html
 
Slow release morphine derivative... 8)

I didn't think you were allowed to shoot pills in the injecting room?
 
In Australia doctors are actually very hesitant to hand out oxycodone. They will generally try and give you morphine before they will give you oxy.

There are checks in place to ensure that no more than 1 doctor prescribes this drug at any one time if I remember correctly...

Here are the prescribing guidelines from the PBS site for Oxycodone:

Severe disabling pain not responding to non-narcotic analgesics.

Note:
Authorities for increased maximum quantities and/or repeats will be granted only for:

(i) severe disabling pain associated with proven malignant neoplasia; or
(ii) chronic severe disabling pain not responding to non-narcotic analgesics where the total duration of narcotic analgesic treatment is less than 12 months; or
(iii) first application for treatment beyond 12 months of chronic severe disabling pain not responding to non-narcotic analgesics where the patient's pain management has been reviewed through consultation by the patient with another medical practitioner, and the clinical need for continuing narcotic analgesic treatment has been confirmed. The date of the consultation must be no more than 3 months prior to the application for a PBS authority. The full name of the medical practitioner consulted and the date of consultation are to be provided at the time of application; or
(iv) subsequent application for treatment of chronic severe disabling pain not responding to non-narcotic analgesics where a PBS authority prescription for treatment beyond 12 months has previously been issued for this patient.


I therefore highly doubt that the majority of these drugs are coming from PBS meds. So don't get too hung up on the idea that your TAX is going to junkies...
 
at least they are getting pharmaceutical grade gear.

wonder what the health benefits of that are?
 
There was alot of talk about this on the am radio stations ..

the only way to stop crime and to put drug dealers out of business is to legalise everything & let the government make some tax from it then everyones happy.

If people want to shoot heroin up everyday for the rest of the pathetic lives then let them do so without it affecting the normal person.

Otherwise this shits just gonna go on and on ..

look at america 80% of the people in jail there are there for drug related crime..
 
^ Most street drugs are manufactured with injecting in mind, whereas pills contain binders and fillers that if not filtered properly can really fuck you up. I posted an article in OD a while back about a guy who survived 9/11 and turned to shooting up pharmaceutical pills and died from lung problems he developed as a complication.

I assume that seeing as this is being done in the injecting room it's probably done pretty safe, but a lot of people doing this in other places aren't as safe.
 
oxycontin

actually brand name oxycodone (oxycontin) time release formulas are in very small pills that only weigh 100mg each and the rest is an insoluble wax binder that if properly filtered wont end up being injected. so they are 'relatively' safe compared with most oral preperations.
 
Mr Blonde said:
^ Most street drugs are manufactured with injecting in mind, whereas pills contain binders and fillers that if not filtered properly can really fuck you up. I posted an article in OD a while back about a guy who survived 9/11 and turned to shooting up pharmaceutical pills and died from lung problems he developed as a complication.

I assume that seeing as this is being done in the injecting room it's probably done pretty safe, but a lot of people doing this in other places aren't as safe.
Click to expand...

surely street gear would be dirtier.

firstly there is no quality control over its manufacture and secondly the cutting agents introduced into street gear wouldn't be much more different than binders found in oxycodone when considering the side effects of such agents/binders.
 
Not only do these scum sucking doctor shoppers hurt the taxpayer but they also hurt the the people that legitimately need the treatment. I have first hand experience as i have just about all of my teeth falling out and trying to get a measly 5mg endone prescribed is like trying to get blood from a stone, even after two letters from a pain specialist strongly advising the GP to prescribe me and a full report from the dentist.

Im finally getting the treatment(just, im still in allot of pain most of the time) but after all the proof from the specialist and dentist he still treats me like drug seeker and not a human being and this can only be put down to others probably trying to doctor shop him.
 
According to my MIMS 2003, the only thing in IR MSContin is morphine sulfate and lactose.
 
MS Contin
Composition Active. Morphine sulfate BP.
Inactive. Tablets. Lactose (5, 10, 15, 30, and 60 mg tablets only), hydroxyethylcellulose, cetostearyl alcohol, magnesium stearate and talc. All tablets are coated with hypromellose, macrogol 400 and titanium dioxide (E171). The coatings also contain: iron oxide red (E172) (10 mg tablet); iron oxide black (E172) (10 and 100 mg tablets); iron oxide yellow (E172) (10, 15 and 100 mg tablets); quinoline yellow (E104) (15, 60 and 200 mg tablets); patent blue V (E131) (15 and 200 mg tablets); indigo carmine (E132) (15, 30 and 100 mg tablets); erythrosine (E127) and sunset yellow FCF (E110) (30 and 60 mg tablets).
Suspension. Xanthan gum, polystyrene sulfonate - hydrogen, xylitol, raspberry flavour 52354T, purified water, brilliant scarlet 4R (E127) as colouring.

Oxycontin
Composition Active. Oxycodone hydrochloride USP.
Inactive. Lactose, povidone, ammonio methacrylate copolymer type B, glycerol triacetate, stearyl alcohol, talc and magnesium stearate. All of the tablets are coated with hypromellose, titanium dioxide and macrogol 400. The tablet coatings also contain: hydroxypropylcellulose
(10 and 80 mg tablets); polysorbate 80 (20 and 40 mg tablets); iron oxide red CI77491 (20 mg tablets); iron oxide yellow CI77492 (40 and 80 mg tablets) and indigo carmine CI73015 (80 mg tablets).

TMI :)
 
Wow, I knew it was popular but I didnt know it was THAT popular. I some how dont believe more people shoot oxy than heroin though.

And yeas Mr_Blonde pills can be shot at the injecting centre, they give you micron filters but they dont allow you to buy or take them out of there. Ive never personally used the place but when I was doing the very dangerous and stupid practice of shoting pills I went there to grab some micron filters and they told me I could only use them there.
 
phlegm69 said:
surely street gear would be dirtier.

firstly there is no quality control over its manufacture and secondly the cutting agents introduced into street gear wouldn't be much more different than binders found in oxycodone when considering the side effects of such agents/binders.
Click to expand...

Quick answer: think about most street drugs you buy with injecting in mind. They completely dissolve in solution, and anything that doesn't gets filtered with cotton.

With pills? There are a lot of insoluble particles that need to be micron filtered out; you may not be able to see these but they can build up over time in your body and kill you in a variety of ways. Lung problems, cardiovascular problems, stroke, etc...

Injecting street drugs isn't safe, but relative to shooting pills it's very much safer.

Ketaman: Ah OK... I think I may have been thinking of one of the European shooting rooms where they don't allow pill injecting. I know I've heard from one BL'er before who was pissed off about that.
 
^Once you start using micron filters, I would say that injecting pharm opioids is a shit load safer - certainly in terms of knowing exactly how much you are taking. Death by overdose would be far less likely for the daily pill injector versus the daily heroin injector.
 
I would of thought titanium dioxide ain't something you'd want to be injecting into your body
 
chugs said:
I would of thought titanium dioxide ain't something you'd want to be injecting into your body
Click to expand...

Mos def.

ayjay said:
^Once you start using micron filters, I would say that injecting pharm opioids is a shit load safer - certainly in terms of knowing exactly how much you are taking. Death by overdose would be far less likely for the daily pill injector versus the daily heroin injector.
Click to expand...

Yeah, once you are using a micron filter it's much safer.

The only problem is availability, which isn't such an issue here in Oz but over in America for example (where a lot of the Other Drug users come from), micron filters are not quite as available and lesser filters like cotton and cigarette filters often get used. Better then nothing but still very bad for you.

But with pharmaceuticals, yes you do have the benefit of knowing your dose and therefore being a lot less likely to OD.
 
^ That's why there should be an injectable pharmacotherapy available. Ampoules of bupe would be the go I think - good safety profile.
 
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