The inpatient treatment facility was forced to close after several years for lack of funding.
Stewart as she was starting to see people addicted to the drug. Sister Beth recalls getting a phone call from Mr. But teenagers and others in town quickly discovered that crushing an Ox圜ontin pill released large quantities of the narcotic oxycodone. He found it hard to believe that a pharmaceutical company would recklessly market a drug that had such an addictive potential to a much wider population.Ī local pharmacist, Greg Stewart, said a sales representative for Purdue Pharma had told him that Ox圜ontin was safe because it was a long-acting narcotic and so would not appeal to drug abusers who liked Percocet and other short-acting pain pills because they delivered a quick high. When Ox圜ontin came on the market in 1996, he prescribed it to his cancer patients to blunt their excruciating pain. Kobak had previously taken on fights in this part of Appalachia, to protect the rights of workers and the environment. Kobak, and they became central characters in a book I wrote called “Pain Killer” that was set in this town.īoth Sister Beth and Ms. I came to Pennington Gap for the first time nearly 20 years ago, reporting for The New York Times about Ox圜ontin’s growing abuse.
“We are still losing people to it.” ‘The worst disaster’ “It never ends, the whole cycle,” she said.
Sister Beth, now 86, continues to run her treatment center, and is seeing more people turning to heroin and fentanyl, which are cheaper and more deadly - and a new scourge, the return of methamphetamine. Some of his patients, still, are addicted to opioids. to take care of paperwork before spending 10- to 12-hour days at a community health clinic.
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