High usage levels of hydrocodone and oxycodone in Oklahoma raise addiction concerns

Two years ago, after Jason was in a car accident, his doctor prescribed pain medicine to help with his whiplash and muscle soreness. Today, the Bethany man and his wife are fighting an addiction that has threatened their jobs, relations with friends and family, their finances and their health.

Fortunately, they found the motivation they need to get clean.

"Me and my wife want to have a baby,” Jason, 23, said.

Jason and Amy (patients and family members in this story asked that their real names be withheld) are among thousands of Oklahomans, many of them young people, who have become addicted to opiate-based prescription painkillers. Included are hydrocodone, sold under brand names including Lortab and Vicodin, and the stronger oxycodone, with brand names such as OxyContin and Percocet.

"Meth is not the big deal anymore,” said Eric, 20, a Yukon man who progressed from snorting oxycodone to injecting it up to 12 times a day.

According to the state Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, 111 million doses of hydrocodone are prescribed every month in Oklahoma, enough for one dose every day for every person in the state. Oklahoma consumes as much hydrocodone as California, which has 10 times the population.

"That’s crazy,” bureau spokesman Mark Woodward said. "We’ve seen huge increases in the last 10 years, just the amounts of them being filled.”

Dr. Charles Shaw has seen the effects. As an "addictionologist,” one of the relatively small number of physicians who specialize in treating addiction, and a recovering alcoholic who has been sober for 26 years, Shaw considers the current use and abuse of prescription painkillers an epidemic. He says pharmaceutical companies market them aggressively, government drug agencies "have dropped the ball” in controlling their use, and physicians who prescribe them get almost no training on addiction. Shaw is speaking out because of his experiences in treating addicts.

"I kept seeing over and over and over people in their 20s addicted to OxyContin,” he said.

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