Published: April 24, 2008 10:46 pm            

KEN HART: It’s time to end the OC plague

Earlier this month, drug enforcement agents raided the office of a South Florida physician and found patient files for more than 500 northeastern Kentucky residents for whom he has allegedly written prescriptions.

Court documents later revealed the doctor was allegedly the principal supplier for a narcotics ring that was distributing OxyContin throughout Boyd, Carter, Greenup, Rowan and Elliott counties.

According to the federal government, local residents, financed by an alleged middle man from Morehead, would travel to the doctor’s clinic, obtain the pills and bring them back home. When they returned, half of their hauls would go to the middle man, while the other half was theirs to either sell on the streets or use themselves.

Some of those drug mules never made it home. There have been numerous reports of Kentuckians being found along the roadsides between here and Florida, dead from overdoses.

The illegal drug distribution scheme allegedly presided over by Dr. Roger Browne from his clinic in Coral Springs was merely the latest outrage to surface since the pharmaceutical industry opened the Pandora’s Box known as OxyContin a few years ago and unleashed a torrent of human misery, the likes of which our region has never seen.

OxyContin, or “hillbilly heroin,” clogs our court dockets and fills our jail cells.

It turns once-productive citizens into desperate addicts who are literally willing to steal from their own mothers if that’s what it takes to get their next fix.

It is at the root of an extremely high percentage of the crimes that occur locally, particularly thefts, forgeries and the like.

It destroys families.

It kills people.

It’s got to stop.

I firmly believe that it is time — past time, actually — for the federal government to step in and yank this drug from the market.

Yes, I am well aware of the fact that a large number people take OxyContin for legitimate medical reasons — chronic pain chief among them — and that it provides great benefit for them.

On the whole, though, I am convinced that the harm that OxyContin does far outweighs the good.

And here’s what I find truly frightening: The overwhelming majority of recovering OC addicts to whom I have spoken have told me they started taking the drug after their doctors prescribed it to them to relieve pain from an injury of some sort.

Not long afterward, those folks told me they were full-blown junkies who were committing criminal acts to obtain funds to silence the monstrous cravings that racked their bodies.

We need to work to find better, less addictive ways to ease the suffering of those afflicted with chronic pain.

We need more and better resources to treat those who are addicted.

We need to make sure our children know that when it is misused, OxyContin is in the same league as heroin, crack and meth.

We need for all these things to happen soon.

Otherwise, I fear that this could be the drug plague that finally brings about our society’s collapse.

KENNETH HART can be reached at khart@dailyindependent.com or (606) 326-2654.

        

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