Prescription drug problems

painkillers only to those patients suffering severe pain. For example to patients suffering cancer-related pain or a painful terminal illness.

‘‘But now you can get it for back pain, because you’ve got a bit of a sore head or you stubbed your toe – whatever.

‘‘It’s too easy to get opiates and we need to address that.’’

Addiction specialists predicted a new breed of drugs entering the market – designed to thwart abuse but provide the same level of pain relief as prescription opiates – would have a huge impact on lowering abuse rates.

As reported by the Mercury last week, Targin was one of those drugs now being prescribed by Tasmanian GPs and medical specialists.

It provided a similar level of pain

Prescription opiates are of real concern, particularly Oxycontin, and there’s high

them.’ capacity for people to get addicted to

— PROFESSOR IAN MCGREGOR

relief to Oxycontin but if injected caused extreme nausea because it contained the anti-narcotic Naloxone.

It allowed prescribers to quickly ascertain a patient’s motivations.

But for those already caught in the cycle of opiate abuse, these drugs had come too late.

Small business owner and divorced father-of-two Tim – who did not wish to be identified – is among what the drug survey suggested was a potentially huge number of Tasmanians battling an opiate addiction, after being prescribed an unfamiliar drug for a legitimate injury.

‘‘It’s fair to say Oxycontin has destroyed my life,’’ Tim told the Mercury.

‘‘In just under three years it’s cost me weekend access to my kids, numerous clients, my health . . . my self-respect.’’

Tim is seeing a psychologist twice weekly after finding he was no longer coping by mid-last year.

His business partner was left to run their small but previously lucrative operation alone until he returned to work part-time in January.

But Tim is still taking Oxycontin daily and admitted he did not see a future without it.

Prof McGregor said people battling addictions commonly found themselves depressed and lacking motivation to escape their addiction because the drugs destroyed the brain’s receptors for feel-good chemicals dopamine and oxytocin.

However, a new study on drug addicted rats showed when administered Oxytocin – not to be confused with Oxycontin – it erased the addiction and the animal became active and engaged with other rats.

‘‘We’re developing new drugs that hit the Oxytocin system better than even Oxytocin does,’’ Prof McGregor said.

But with such studies years away from benefiting human addicts, Prof McGregor said it was time to address the ways in which drug companies marketed their products directly to the doctors prescribing them.

‘‘One of the reasons for this problem is that drugs such as Oxycontin are magnificent marketing successes and these companies encourage the prescribing of these drugs for relatively trivial pain,’’ he said.

‘‘We need to have a look at that and address that as best we can.’’