OxyContin Tablets Getting A Makeover

  This will really make the OxyContin abusers a little ill as the pill is remade so that those addicts can't crush them up for injection and/or snorting.

  The pill will have a plastic coating to make them harder to crush and they will also turn into a " gooey mess " if needle users try to shoot it into their veins, according to their maker Purdue Pharma LP. There is one small problem with the studies which need to be done before this is okayed for the market.

The FDA will ask its scientific advisers on Monday if the reformulated drug seems tamper-resistant enough to allow on the market, before the required long-term studies are done to see if the changes thwart at least some abuse.  Newsday

   A little history on the drug.

OxyContin was hailed as a breakthrough in the treatment of severe chronic pain when it was introduced in 1996. A time-release version of the old narcotic oxycodone, it was designed to be swallowed whole and digested over 12 hours to keep a steady state of the painkiller in the bodies of seriously ill patients.
But abusers rapidly discovered the tablets can produce a heroin-like high if crushed and snorted or injected, thus dumping the dose all at once instead of letting it seep in slowly.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration found the number of oxycodone-related deaths nationwide had quintupled by 2001, as OxyContin prescriptions soared. The DEA cracked down, but OxyContin abuse steadily spread across the country. And a year ago, Purdue Pharma and some of its executives pleaded guilty to misleading the public about OxyContin's risk of addiction earlier in the decade, and agreed to millions in fines to settle state complaints that it encouraged over-prescribing of the drug.   A.P.

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