This society has a problem with spiritual desolation and despair. Taking opiates is not a thrill and they make you horribly constipated. If you are so bored that this interests you I do not thing anything the FDA does will help you.

On the other hans if you are a lawyer it is fun to sue companies and take their money......

Oye, here we go... If you are in pain, you want something that will legitimately kill the pain. And if you have real pain, you are unlikely or less likely to become physically addicted to the medication. It is only when you start taking opiates when you do not have real pain that you get a physical dependency on them. But there is so much concern by the government to control pain meds, that people who really do suffer have a horrible time getting the meds they need. Doctors are reluctant to prescribe medications that really help people function because the Feds crack down so hard on even the thought that someone may possibly be able to abuse something. They won´t even give more morpheine to terminal patients for fear that they may get addicted. It is so twisted. You wonder why so many people get drugs illegally? Because sometimes it is the only way they can manage their pain. They have to self-medicate because a lot of doctors won´t give them what they need.

Not being in chronic pain myself, I have no idea how it feels. However, my DH is in pain and this is the only thing that will touch it. Unfortunately, he is looked at like a common addict by anyone he comes into contact with. They either think he is od´ing or selling it when he gets urine-tested every month in order to get his RX renewed. He runs out a few days early every month, depending on his pain levels and has to explain why there isn´t enough of it in his system. He absolutely hates being on pain killers, but thank God for them. We are praying that they will finally find the source of the pain and it is fixable. If not, this will be his life.

Spare me all the hysterics about addicting drugs. Oxycontin doesn´t make you ´high´. It doesn´t get you stoned. It just takes away the pain and lets you live a normal life.

Is it addicting? Of course it is -- it´s an opiate. So, once the pain has been dealt with, once whatever was causing the hurt has been done away with, you doctor can put you on a program (mine took 21 days) to ease you off the drug altogether.

The abuse takes place with many people by crushing the pills and snorting them. That puts a whole lot of the drug into one´s bloodstream quickly, and the practice is what kills abusers.
I share others´ concerns about the legitimate need for pain medication. (I say that after having 5 back surgeries over the past ten years.)

I suppose prescription pain meds can be a problem but this seems to be the crisis de jour for the media now.

I would think with with meth, coke, pot etc. flooding across our southern so-called border and murder becoming the national pastime in Mexico they would have more pressing problems to fret about.

One of my docs said they want him to do an addictive evaluation on his pain meds patients every six months. All they are doing is making it harder for patients with genuine pain problems. Opiates have been one of the greatest boons to mankind ever. The drugs allow people to function normally and keep people from dying in agony like they did 200 years ago.

I know they are abused but our ever oppressive government is way too much in our lives.

I am an Anesthesiologist- in my professional (and humble) opinion, Oxycontin should be "Schedule 1", meaning illegal for any use, much as heroin is. Heroin is a fantastic painkiller too, and was used in much of the world as a "medicine", but its addictive potential was found to be too high, and it was pulled from the market. Oxycontin is much like heroin in that it has a very high addictive potential and for that reason alone should be pulled. MS Contin and other extended release formulations of morphine are effective and seem to have less abuse potential. Oxycontin may not make you "high", but it doesnt need to produce euphoria in order to be abused. It should be pulled from the market.

Or you could be me and be allergic to pain medicine...I carry around a list of 16 drugs that I cannot take. It is the first thing I hand them. Last fall when I went to the emergency room with a migraine (I usually do not go, but this headache was scary), the doctor looked at me and said, "What do you want me to do?"

35 years ago I remember hearing that cocaine wasn´t addictive. That didn´t work out so well for a lot people I knew.

Not wanting to be in pain is probably addictive.

I recall getting a bunch to deal with some kidney stones. They certainly helped with the pain and also gave me an improvement in my mood (uh oh - shades of reefer madness). When the pain ended I quit taking the pills - and endured no withdrawal symptoms. In fact I had quite a few left over - which I used a year later for another stone attack - and saved myself a trip to the emergency room.

#7, apparently you have never had horrific, acute pain before. MS Contin is only good for medium-level long term chronic pain management. I guess you are against the use of morpheine and probably dilaudid too. I honestly don´t think that heroin should have been made illegal...though in actuality it is just a cruder version of morpheine. At any rate, for the other poster, you can´t equate an opiate with cocaine. Yes, cocaine had some medical uses too, But unlike opiates, it can adversely affect some people´s minds and behaviors. Opiates may be addictive, but they cause the least amount of damage to the body and mind than almost all other drugs--including alcohol (which is one of the most damaging and dangerous, but ironically legal--it helps to have a powerful political lobby that can get every other drug banned I guess).

I got no relief from Oxycontin when I had a very painful attack. I guess it just doesn´t affect me. I´ve also tried other prescription pain relievers, but I get as good results (in other words, very little) from Ibuprofen.

Been in moderate to severe chronic pain for the past 11 yrs. Have run the gamut from OTC products which will kill your liver, to Vicodin...to oxycodone...to morphine...and now to Fentyl patches. Though a synthetic opoid it still can have same side effects and withdrawal symptoms as any opiod.
But to ban any pain killing product is way over the line IMO. Regulate as needed.

Poster #10, exactly the same with me. Kidney stones, the worst pain ever and I´ve had five children. I´m not ´addicted´ to OxyContin, just keep it around for emergencies. Had one just last Sunday and with 20 people coming to dinner, there was no way I could make it to the emergency room or through the day without relief. I´ve found that Aleve is a pretty good pain reliever for just the ordinary everyday pain such as a sore knee or back.

Like #7 I am also a anesthesiologist and I truly believe that pain is under treated in the USA. Many suffer for many reasons, often lack of appropriate treatment is the most common one. This article is just another hit piece on "big pharma". Pain is a vengeful mistress and can be very difficult to please. Fortunately most have a limited reason to require pain meds, a surgery, a car accident, etc. Others suffer at the hands of physicians to frightened of rules to treat them. There are true pain specialists (I am not one) who utilize multiple modalities to treat a given patients pain. There are many medications in his toolbox and opiates are the mainstay for many. Limiting certain medications just takes tools away from the doctor. Abuse outside of legitimate treatment will always be with us. Unscrupulous prescribers also are a big problem. The goal is to get as many as possible back to functional daily living, sadly, that is not possible for everyone. Many suffer in silence.

After hip surgery, I was put on oxycontin for pain. I threw up everything I even thought of eating (even ice chips) and got so dehydrated they had to give me IV fluids. I quit taking it and did fine.

I was unlucky enough in 1999 to have a spinal cord injury with the resultant chronic back pain. For many years I was on megadoses of OxyContin, then morphine. I was blessed to find a non-pharmacological treatment (spinal cord stimulator) that allowed me to wean off all narcotics. I never had any withdrawals. As well, even on the megadoses I was able to work full time, with no one knowing I was on narcotics. And my coworkers are physicians and nurses who see many on narcotics.
Narcotics given by the right physician, to the appropriate patient, in the appropriate doses, is a life saver.

My right hip bone is steadily deteriorating due to arthritis. Some days it is so, so hard to walk. My doctor only prescribes opiates when I finally end up in his office crying and exhausted from the pain. I wonder how bad it´s going to have to get before I can get on a steady regimen that will allow me to function and get adequate rest. But hey, at least I´m not one of those loser pill-poppers.

I appreciate "Tivadoc" and his or her comments. I would refer him to the article in the WSJ "A pain-drug champion has second thoughts" (Dec. 17). There is a very good chance that we have been duped as professionals as to the efficacy of chronic narcotics for non-malignant pain. I trained in the 90´s and it was drilled into our head that pain was under treated. I live in Tennessee, the Oxycontin belt, and I can tell you that pain here is most assuredly NOT undertreated. Half my patients are on Oxycontin it seems.