Keep writing million scrips a year without any protections whatsoever? At some point you have to think about the future. To Humphreys, the key point in favor of the reformulation — and other interventions that make opioid painkillers harder to misuse — is that they prevent more people from getting addicted to the drugs.
After all, if the problem was that painkillers were so accessible that they made it easy for people to start on a path that ends with misusing and overdosing on heroin, then the inverse is true as well: Making opioid painkillers hard to obtain and misuse will stop people from going down a path of addiction. On one hand, you have the current stock of opioid users who are addicted; the people in this population need treatment or they will simply find other, potentially deadlier opioids to use if they lose access to painkillers or the ability to misuse painkillers.
On the other hand, you have to stop new generations of people from accessing and misusing opioids — or they will get addicted to the drugs and potentially overdose and die. Consider the example given in the study: A person got addicted to opioids by misusing OxyContin, but when the formula for the pill changed, he lost his ability to misuse the drug, so he began using heroin instead.
Part of this example shows the reformulation working as intended: The person was so burdened by the change that he felt the need to shift to heroin. But what if addiction treatment was made very accessible?
So when this person hit the roadblock to misusing opioids posed by the reformulation, he could have decided that it was time to get into an addiction treatment program, instead of going to heroin. Apply that thousands of times over, and the findings of the paper could have been very different. The reality of the US today, though, is that treatment is not accessible enough for this to be realistic.
In some states, for instance, waiting periods for treatment can span weeks or even months. Lieber agreed that this is plausible. But he argued that the findings of the paper still provide a lesson on the limitations — and dangerous side effects — of well-meaning interventions. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding.
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By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The maker of OxyContin tried to make it harder to misuse.
It may have led to more heroin deaths. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. What the study found The study, which has not been peer reviewed yet, used economic models to measure trends in opioid overdose deaths — breaking them down to focus on heroin — to see what happened after the OxyContin reformulation was introduced in William Evans, Ethan Lieber, and Patrick Power The researchers looked at other potential explanations for these breaks in previous trends: if there was a sudden drop in the heroin price that may have led to more heroin use, whether new prescription drug monitoring databases may have cut off access to OxyContin and pushed people to heroin more so than the reformulation, and if the crackdown on Florida pill mills — which unscrupulously gave out opioid prescriptions — pushed people to heroin more than the reformulation.
They do this in order to increase the intensity of the high produced. When someone snorts hydrocodone, the drug hits the bloodstream immediately, producing a quick, yet short-lived, high.
Since the high produced is so short, some users will crave another dose and continue abusing the drug. Using hydrocodone in any other way besides in the way that is specified on the label or by a doctor is considered medication misuse. Furthermore, abusing hydrocodone in this manner can cause a person to become physically addicted to the drug in as little as one week. Once someone is dependent on opioid drugs, their body will require regular doses to feel normal.
Without the drug, addicted individuals will go into withdrawal. While crushing and snorting opioids like hydrocodone may produce faster and more intense effects, the tablets are manufactured in a way that makes them dangerous to snort.
After all, they are meant to be swallowed and digested slowly in the body — not hit the bloodstream all at once or touch the nasal passages. As a result, there are many risks associated with snorting hydrocodone, and you should never attempt to do so.
Hydrocodone is a medication that is intended to pass through the gastrointestinal system. When snorted, it interferes with the intended delivery of the drug, increasing the risk of overdose, addiction , and other harmful side effects. Furthermore, hydrocodone pills contain fillers that can further irritate the nose, throat, and lungs.
Not to mention the fact that many people purchase prescription opioids on the street, not knowing what is contained inside. The tissue lining the nasal passages is thin and delicate. Snorting fine powders and other irritants can inflame the tissue, leading to discomfort and even nosebleeds. However, these are only short term effects. In the long term, snorting medications like hydrocodone can actually erode the nasal tissue, causing a hole to form between the nostril and the roof of the mouth.
Of course, this makes eating, swallowing, and breathing exceptionally difficult. People experiencing nasal erosion may make a whistling sound when they breathe or struggle with dry mouth. Additionally, inflamed nasal tissue can lead to damaged cilia — the nasal hairs that are responsible for capturing dirt and foreign particles from the outside.
As a result, snorting hydrocodone can lead to a loss of smell. Even more shocking is the risk of necrosis, or dead and dying tissue in the nose. When snorted, some hydrocodone ends up traveling to the back of the nose. The issue with snorting is that the nose is not designed to absorb that many powders, it is designed to filter out particles that should not be in the body.
With repeated abuse, the mucous membrane can become worn down and damaged. When oxycodone is snorted, side effects of the drug can include sudden, a dangerous drop in blood pressure, seizures, slowed breathing, cardiac arrest, and potential death. Some additional effects of oxycodone may include:. After long-term misuse of oxycodone, individuals can experience a dangerously decreased level of testosterone. Other long-term effects of oxycodone include excessive sweating, swelling in the arms and legs and chronic constipation.
One study showed that individuals can suffer from nasopharyngeal necrosis after chronically snorting oxycodone. This condition is associated with severe tissue destruction, causing a defect in the soft palate roof of the mouth.
Long-term misuse of oxycodone can also result in immunosuppression or a general weakening of the immune system. Possible effects of opioid-induced immunosuppression have been reported to include susceptibility to infection, increased risk of cancer, and an increased risk of HIV infection in drug abusers. Chronic use of oxycodone will also lead to tolerance and dependence and when someone suddenly stops using they will be subject to intense withdrawal symptoms.
These symptoms can include central nervous system CNS hyperactivity that will peak 48 to 72 hours after the last dose of the drug. Withdrawal from oxycodone will begin with feelings of restlessness and anxiety followed by an increased breathing rate, runny nose, stomach cramps, excessive tearing and sweating, and other flu-like symptoms.
Even though oxycodone withdrawal is not usually fatal, it is incredibly uncomfortable. Snorting oxycodone increases the risk of addiction to the drug because of the more intense effects and rewarding sensation that reinforces continued use.
Some signs that someone may be addicted to oxycodone can include:. Other signs that someone is snorting oxycodone may include frequent running or bleeding nose, inflamed nose, constantly rubbing or picking at the entry of the nose and paraphernalia like straws and empty prescription bottles.
Oxycodone is an extremely habit-forming opioid drug , even when used as directed. One very real and long-term danger of snorting oxycodone is the physical dependence and eventual withdrawal. Using oxycodone in an illicit manner exponentially increases the chance of addiction, according to the Center for Substance Abuse Research.
When someone snorts oxycodone, they may be more likely to move to heroin because heroin is more easily accessible and less expensive. An increasing number of people report that their heroin addiction started by abusing prescription painkillers like oxycodone.
This is thought to happen because when someone tries to find oxycodone on the streets, it can often end up being another opioid drug like fentanyl. This can also be dangerous because fentanyl is more potent than oxycodone, and snorting it may result in immediate death.
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