Fact:
In response to OxyContin's escalating diversion and abuse, DEA has established a comprehensive National Action Plan, which focuses on investigations targeting key diversion points (e.g., forged and fraudulent prescriptions, pharmacy theft, doctor shoppers, and unscrupulous medical professionals) and in-depth investigations of OxyContin's manufacturer and distributors to determine compliance with regulatory requirements designed to prevent diversion. The National Action Plan also includes cooperative efforts among DEA, other government agencies and the medical community, to send the message that OxyContin is a highly abusable and addictive substance. One of the National Action Plan's tenets involved DEA working with the Food and Drug Administration in their efforts to have OxyContin's manufacturer, Purdue Pharma, revise the package insert. As a result, Purdue Pharma added cautionary language on the drug's abuse and diversion potential to the package insert in July of 2001. The medical community has also received additional information on the proper use of OxyContin. In addition, Purdue Pharma, OxyContin's manufacturer, announced recently that it is reformulating the drug to reduce its intravenous abuse potential, but this reformulation will do little to curb the widespread abuse of orally consumed tablets. http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:gvymsM9C3YEJ:www.state.gov/g/inl/rls/rm/2002/9235.htm+oxycontin+arrest+statistics&hl=en&ie=UTF-8 We have not dispatched Special Forces to Wilmington, Delaware to thwart the pharmaceutical manufacturers.
But we have deployed the National Guard in WV:
NATIONAL GUARD ANTI-DRUG EFFORT'S ARRESTS, SEIZURES UP
The West Virginia National Guard Counterdrug Progam has recorded 154 arrests and $5.7 million in seized drugs during the first half of this fiscal year -- numbers that appear to be growing from previous years.
The National Guard was involved in 255 arrests during the entire 2000 fiscal year and 137 arrests during the 1999 fiscal year. The program seized approximately $778,215 worth of illegal drugs over the last fiscal year and $1,003 during the 1999 fiscal year.
Adj. Gen. Allen Tackett said strong anti-drug programs are essential.
"When I look at the statistics of how many young people are involved in drugs today, I know we need good drug demand interdiction," Tackett said. "I don't think we'll ever completely demolish drugs in this state, but we can make it difficult for young people to get them."
The current statistics were fueled by $10 million in federal money that will allow the National Guard to employ 55 full-time soldiers and purchase a support aircraft.
A "significant increase in prescription drug use" has also contributed, said Lt. Col. James Hoyer, deputy coordinator of the 6-year-old program.
Abuse of the prescription painkiller OxyContin has become a serious problem in parts of West Virginia, law enforcement officials have said. Twenty West Virginia deaths last year had ties to oxycodone, the sole ingredient in OxyContin, according to autopsy reports and an investigation by the state medical examiner's office.