Academic literature on the topic 'Buy Oxycontin'

This chapter discusses how the pharmaceutical industry’s actions affected the accomplishments of the Decade of Pain Control and Research, which began on January 1, 2001, following almost two decades of rising concern over the inadequate treatment of chronic pain in the United States. To tell the story of this decade we must describe the accompanying problem of drug diversion and abuse. The development in 1995 of a new opioid product called OxyContin, its aggressive marketing, the morbidity and mortality associated with its misuse, and the eventual felony conviction in 2007 of the drug’s sponsor for fraudulent claims and marketing practices, affected the Decade in unexpected ways. The response by Congress and the regulatory community to what they termed an “epidemic” of prescription drug abuse produced long-lasting policy changes. The chapter also touches on the peculiar and sometimes troubling relationship between the regulators and the regulated.

In this analysis of the “War on Drugs,” some of America’s leading drug war scholars examine the hows and whys of America’s long and devasting campaign to punish people who want to get high and those who attend to that market demand. We explain why the War on Drugs received so much broad public support for so long and, thus, its political utility. We ponder, too, who benefited from the War, as we examine how the war was fought both domestically and internationally. We analyze, as well, how forces have aligned to permit some drugs to be legally enmeshed in a willfully impotent regulatory regime—OxyContin, for example—while other drugs, even when championed by a range of credentialled experts, are ruled too dangerous to be legal in any circumstance—LSD, for example. Finally, we consider why so many people were so willing to battle the mighty and punishing force of the War on Drugs, maintaining despite its force a vibrant, dynamic, and expansive market for the illegal substances Americans desired. Fundamentally, we want readers to understand how profoundly the War on Drugs has figured the history of the United States.

When used appropriately under medical supervision, hydrocodone (e.g., Vicodin), oxycodone (e.g., OxyContin), morphine, and similar prescription pain relievers provide indispensable medical benefit by reducing pain and suffering, but when taken without appropriate direction and oversight, these medications can cause serious adverse consequences and produce dependence and abuse. Approximately 324,000 emergency department visits in 2006 involved the nonmedical use of pain relievers (including both prescription and over-the-counter pain medications). This chapter discusses how, when individuals wish to detoxify from opiate dependence, there are several options available, including both conventional and newer, more rapid approaches.