OxyContin Addiction: The Hottest Selling Narcotic in History
By Dr. Mercola
Narcotic painkillers have become a serious problem due to their abuse potential and adverse health effects. But one narcotic stands out above the rest for its meteoric rise in popularity followed by an equally impressive dive into disfavor.
OxyContin is a narcotic drug, manufactured by Purdue Pharma, and has been described as the most dramatically successful of the opioid drugs. If the measure of success is its marketing campaign, then Oxy definitely takes the gold.
The Canadian documentary OxyContin: Time Bomb tells the story of how Purdue Pharma steamrolled its way into the marketplace with this dangerous drug, preying on vulnerable pain sufferers and the physicians trying to help them.
Canada is spending more than 10 billion dollars a year on narcotic pain pillsand hundreds of millions more on the addictions they cause. However, Americans may have them beat.
According to the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians, Americans consume 80 percent of the worlds pain pills.1 Misleading pain statistics are used to push increasingly stronger narcotics into the marketplace.
Since OxyContin was introduced in 1996, Canada has recorded the second-highest number of prescription opioid painkiller addictions and the world’s second-highest death rate from overdoses. In the US, narcotic overdose deaths now surpass deaths from murders and fatal car accidents.
As soon as it was released, Purdue Pharma hailed OxyContin as its new miracle pill for pain sufferers. Drug company representatives told physicians and patients OxyContin was safer than other narcotics because it was time-released, so there was…
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