Sales of the nation’s two most popular prescription painkillers (oxycodone and hydrocodone) have exploded in new parts of the country, an Associated Press analysis shows, worrying experts who say the push to relieve patients’ suffering is spawning an addiction epidemic.
From New York’s Staten Island to Santa Fe, N.M., Drug Enforcement Administration figures show dramatic rises between 2000 and 2010 in the distribution of oxycodone, the key ingredient in OxyContin, Percocet and Percodan. Some places saw sales increase sixteenfold.
http://online.wsj.com/article/AP3d8960c42a3a430ca5f6437ca964c857.html?KEYWORDS=painkiller
Source: Wall Street Journal – April 5, 2012
