Comment
Author: Admin | 2025-04-28
And addicts said the reformulation had only driven up interest for other narcotics. Demand appears especially high for pure oxycodone pills that come in a 30-milligram dose, often called “Perc 30s” or “Roxies” on the street. Opana, a time-release painkiller similar to OxyContin that has been on the market for five years, is showing up increasingly in police reports and has been blamed for a rash of overdose deaths. And heroin use has jumped sharply in many regions, according to rehab centers and the police.“It’s just a matter of switching,” said John Burke, commander of the drug task force in Warren County, Ohio, and president of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators. “If I’m an addict, I’m going to find a drug that works.”ImageJames Moore, 28, of Revere, Mass., at a treatment center in East Boston. He said he started using heroin when OxyContin changed its formula.Credit...Evan McGlinn for The New York TimesMr. Burke said abuse of other oxycodone drugs was already growing before OxyContin was reformulated last August, partly because the other drugs are cheaper and because OxyContin had become harder to find on the street. Many doctors had stopped prescribing it because of its stigma and switched to other oxycodone drugs, Mr. Burke said.Raymond V. Tamasi, president and chief executive of Gosnold on Cape Cod, a treatment center, said he had noticed that addicts switch initially to the Perc 30s. “But eventually people make that progression from the pills to what appears to be a more economical
Add Comment