OXYCONTIN:  HILLBILLY HEROIN

By Bill Landis

 

            Oycontin was invented as a time release version of the semisynthetic opiod oxycodone.  Oxycodone is the main component of the popular Schedule II narcotics Percodan and Percocet.  They do a brisk street trade in New York City, have always been one of the most popular street drugs and have always been sought out by well heeled patients of doctors with generous pads.

 

            Both Percodan and Percocet contain 5mg of oxycodone, which is approximate to morphine.  It is strong and shot acting.  The trouble with Percodan is its aspirin filler.  It can cause ulcers and kidney damage.  The American comic Jerry Lewis was known for his intake of this pharmaceutical, and eventually collapsed from an ulcer brought on by its use at a philanthropic event.  Lewis also listed as his complaints about the medication as constipating and “the depressing realization I had become impotent.”  While oxycodone can stoke the sexual desires, it also makes the chronic user numb in the genital region.  It can be very arousing but after long periods of abuse can rob the sex organs of all but a fleeting sensation.

 

            Percocet was invented to remove the aspirin content and replace it with Tylenol (paracatemol) to lessen this danger.  This medication is Schedule II prescription in the United States, meaning that it requires three doctors signatures and is considered highly abusable, in the same category as morphine and dilaudid, though it is not that strong.  There are now Percocet 7.5mg and Percocet 10mg as well as the original 5mg formulations.

 

            The factor about the active narcotic, oxycodone, is that there is no ceiling on it and tolerance grows extremely rapidly.  So chronic pain patients, like people with cancer, were taking a huge amount of the tablets as the aspirin or Tylenol was damaging their internal organs, especially the liver. The time release theory that drives Oxycontin – making a short acting narcotic dosable at 12 hour intervals – also drives Contugesic (also discussed in the medical information section on this Brown Addict site), which is why Contugesic is also known as Codicontin.

 

            Perdue Frederick labs thought they solved this problem by removing all the filler, and making Oxycontin, a time release version of oxycodone in 20mg, 40mg, 80mg, 120mg and 160mg strengths.  When the paper wrapper around the tablet is removed, the tablet can be chewed for immediate release, snorted or injected.  Oxycontin soon got a reputation as “hillbilly heroin” because of its prevalence in junk-deprived hick areas like West Virginia.

 

            Oxycontins are huge in the prudish climate of Florida.   Even the obnoxious, foul right wing talk show host Rush Limbaugh was arrested for possession of them; he was both doctor shopping and buying them illegally.  In Florida a 20mg tablet sells for about $10 and a 40mg tablet for about $25.  It is a considered a drug to be pursued in that overly hot and intellectually barren area.  The crazed oxy-head has also given the crazed speed-freak a run for his money.  There’s always cases of oxy-heads hurting themselves trying to break into the pharmacies of all night grocery stores there to head for the oxy bottle.

 

            What becomes astonishing is how many people actually function daily on huge amounts of the drug.  The problem is its lack of ceiling to the dosage.  People go to work and have relatively normal lives at doses as high as 320mg a day.  You cannot detox from this without medical attention, and to cover it with methadone would take approximately 2/3 the oxycodone mg – say in this extreme case about 220mg.  Imagine tapering down from that.

 

            An Asian (Indo-Pak) doctor named Mizra was arrested in Florida and humiliatingly led out of the office in handcuffs, telling the cops, “I hope you never have to feel the pain.”  Mizra was giving out scripts to oxycontin for auto accidents after a  cursory 15 minute visit.  Eventually relatives of patients who would see family members fall asleep in their food got fed up with him and dropped a dime.  It turned out his lowlife staff did not make things any better for him.  Florida health workers are among the nation’s creepiest – ready to label a patient as a “drug seeker” and share the information with neighboring physicians, or fire an employee who made a false call in for vicodin for themselves.  However, they also perform a Marat/Sade play of the inmates being the staff, a majority have their own “health conditions” requiring painkilling or psychotropic drugs.  A few get sticky fingers with the sample products in the office and are so low as to blame other employees for the theft.  Following the hypocritical nature of that flourishes in this repressed state, Florida health workers like this are ready to judge others’ habits. 

 

Mizra’s staff was a particularly lowdown group, mailing his triplicates to Miami and as far away as Boston.  Once Mizra was out on bail, he considerately put all his patients on Methadone.  Oxycontin remains an expensive drugstore item, and the methadose capsules (which fizz in a drink like alka-seltzer) are considerably cheaper.

 

            Lenny originally encountered Oxycontin in its 20mg form from his most trustworthy pill connection, Dom, a compulsive gambler who sold meds to support his habit at New York’s Off Track Betting Centers.  He was also convenient because he made deliveries by cell phone.  Lenny had originally told Dom that the pills he had marked “KPI 235” were Vicodin ES and eventually became customer zero for what later became one of Dom’s most popular items.

 

            Lenny had only seen pictures of Oxycontins in the Physician’s Desk Reference but memorized their appearance should a circumstance like this occur.  They were little pink tablets with OC 20 marked on them.  Dom was confused.  Lenny said let me have them for $5 each.  There were about four tablets, and Dom agreed, not knowing their worth.

 

            Lenny took tablet one properly on the tubes as he sat down, swallowing it whole for the time release effect.  Sensing no danger, chewed the other one for the full bitter opiate taste and immediate release.  It was like taking eight Percocet, but not quite; the time release factor of Oxycontin gave it a bit of a fuzzy headed feeling unlike the almost OCD sharpness you get with Percocet.

 

            The experience ended with a deep pleasant sleep.  Lenny and his wife also experimented with snorting the Oxycontins, and they were a little hard to break up.  The sensation felt very similar to snorting gear.

 

            By the even the second night of a run – that’s how fast the tolerance grows – Lenny had graduated to three Oxycontin 20mg plus Valium place an occasional Vicodin ES (7.5mg hydrocodone), prompting his wife to sarcastically say “you look retarded when you take those things.”  That would be the equivalent of 12 Percocets plus some Vicodin and Valium thrown in, a pretty potent brew.

 

            Pretty soon, the item was selling and Dom wanted $15 a pop for the 20mg ones, and $35 a pop for the 40mg size.  His rationale was like they were worth that much if they were Percocet because of the oxycocodone content.    Another dealer named Shorty, a black guy from Harlem who met customers at the transitory corner of 96th Street and 3rd Avenue, who had been handy with heavily discounted prices of hard to obtain Schedule II items like dilaudids and seconals switched his trade to oxys, carrying the 40mg one for only $15 and the 80mg one for $25.

 

            Years ago, before they grew into an outright media craze, Lenny gave up on the oxycontins after falling asleep in some Japanese food.  Better learn your lesson quick, and as mentioned, the tolerance just keeps growing with this one.

 

            Singer Courtney Love who, despite whatever one’s personal opinion of her is, made the mistake of showing an intrusive child services worker a bottle of pills containing Oxycontin, which has contributed to her considerable legal problems here and custody battle over her daughter.  America’s Department of Children and Family Services are notorious menaces in the United States, private agencies populated by uneducated social workers that can invade the home on an “anonymous” tip and, though not a legal entity themselves, can start proceedings to rip a child from a family, especially on the pretext that the parents use drugs.  Americans should always be aware that you do not have to allow these individuals in your home, and do not have to discuss any medication you are using with them.  It is this particular quasi-legal arm that keeps attacking the controversial Ms. Love.

 

            One cannot purchase any Schedule II items including Percodan, Percocet and Oxycontin off the net.  Sites purporting to sell them through “Mexican pharmacies” are illegal, even if some are rumored to come through. 

 

            Oxycontins themselves provide a good look at the hypocrisy in America surrounding the drug culture.  They’re most popular in the most prudish “anti-drug state” Florida, which also plays host to all the internet drug companies.  On the other hand, the concept of removing liver and kidney damaging filler for a medication needed in large doses by patients with painful conditions was very humanitarian.  As a street drug it can be more reliable than heroin, and according to the manufacturer will take “years” to prevent it from being crushed up for snorting or shooting.  Still, the quick tolerance and severe withdrawals from the drug should prove a word to the wise, for any novice or seasoned addict.  Another danger is that Oxycontins, when injected, give a similar rush to dilaudid, sometimes making the user forget how may tablets he’s ingested to repeat the pleasurable sensation and overdose.  The fact that they are time-released can also lead a novice user to take more than needed because the “high” isn’t felt yet.  Another sure road to overdose with Oxycontin is in combination with several other drugs at once, especially alcohol.

 

Slang names:  oxys, OC’s, hillbilly heroin, oxycotton

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More of Bill Landis and his collaborator Michelle Clifford at

www.sleazoidexpress.com

www.geocities.com/metasex

Exploitation and 1970s classic adult movies and the Times Square vice world documented, and much more.

   

 

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