27 June 2008

Heroin addicts turn to pain killers in a big way in Sydney since 2006

ABC news item Mon 23/6/08

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/06/23/2282439.htm


'Hillbilly heroin' makes its mark on Australian streets.

Doctor shopping: dealers rove from surgery to surgery conning doctors.

Audio: Black market booming for prescription painkillers (AM) There are any number of illegal drugs on Australian streets at any one time, but a relative newcomer, known as 'hillbilly heroin', is becoming more popular - subsidised by taxpayers. Audio: http://mpegmedia.abc.net.au/news/audio/am/200806/20080623-am06-oxycodone.mp3

News story:
There are increasing fears that the use of drugs such as oxycodone is growing and becoming a serious problem in Australia.

Oxycodone and similar drugs such as morphine are restricted and only available by prescription, but ABC Radio's AM program has discovered the legitimate market is being rorted by drug dealers.

Twenty-two-year-old Steven - not his real name - moved to Sydney from the United States several years ago.

He brought with him an addiction to the painkiller oxycodone, which is mostly sold under the brand name OxyContin.

In the United States drugs like OxyContin and morphine, usually sold as MS Contin, are widespread. They are called 'hillbilly heroin'.

However when Steven got to Australia, he initially found it hard to find them. But he says that situation changed very quickly.

"I knew that it was prescribed here, but it just wasn't very prevalent. Over the time since getting here, it became more and more, and I heard about it and finally found people selling it down in Melbourne.

"It has become much more prevalent and people do know what it is now and it is definitely growing."

In the United States, the abuse of oxycodone and morphine is rampant and they cause large numbers of overdose deaths.

In Australia, the drugs are restricted and obtainable only with a prescription from a doctor in cases of severe pain.

But there are strong indications the illegal use of these drugs is increasing in Australia. The Australian Crime Commission's recent Illicit Drug Data Report stated morphine use was rising in Queensland and the ACT.

The director of Sydney's Medically Supervised Injecting Centre, Dr Ingrid Van Beek, says she noticed a change about two years ago.

"Of course these medications have always been injected over the years by injecting drug users, but it was about two years ago that we started to see quite a significant increase."

On average around 220 people use the centre each day. Dr Van Beek says now up to 45 per cent of these people report using either oxycodone or morphine.

They get them from people like Sammy, a longtime drug dealer in Sydney's Kings Cross.

He says oxycodone and morphine are more popular than heroin.

"Heroin only holds you for four hours before it starts coming out of your system; where oxycodone or morphine sulphate holds you for 48 hours and one is cheaper than the other," he said.

Sammy gets his supply by what he calls 'doctor shopping' - that is roving from surgery to surgery conning doctors into believing he needs the drugs for medicinal purposes.

"They'd give me what I needed because I looked respectable. If I went in with tracksuit pants and a t-shirt and an Adidas jacket or something like that you know, typical bogan basically, then they would have had second thoughts about prescribing them to me," he said.

Sammy show he has dozens of used packets of OxyContin and MS Contin that he obtained doctor shopping.

These were often bought for less than $5 for a packet of 20 tablets - a price subsidised by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

Dr Andrew Byrne is an addiction specialist operating out of Redfern in inner-city Sydney. He says almost all of his patients now report using either oxycodone or morphine, often to the exclusion of heroin.

He says it is far too easy to obtain legal drugs for illegal purposes.

"Given that the doctor doesn't believe that the patient is a drug addict, the doctor is allowed to write a prescription for strong opiate drugs at any quantity and with any number of repeats that they feel is appropriate," he said.

Dr Byrne says it is effectively an illegal drug trade subsidised by the taxpayer.


Based on a report by Michael Edwards for AM.

Tags: drugs-and-substance-abuse, law-crime-and-justice, crime, drug-offences, australia, nsw, sydney-2000, vic, melbourne-3000

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