Saskatchewan is following other provinces by changing the rules about the prescription pain drug OxyContin.
Manufacturer Purdue Pharma, located in Pickering, Ont., is stopping production on the controversial, addictive drug in favour of another opioid drug called OxyNEO.
The manufacturer says the OxyNEO tablet is much more difficult to crush up and when mixed with water it turns into a gel, to discourage illicit use of the drug.
Tracey Smith, director of pharmaceutical services with the drug plan and extended benefits branch of Saskatchewan Ministry of Health, says they are strengthening the criteria for coverage to help encourage more appropriate use of this medication.
Saskatchewan has listed the drug under chronic pain and palliative care for cancer patients, providing coverage in “limited circumstances.”
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Smith says patients who had been prescribed OxyContin in the past three months would be eligible for consideration for OxyNEO by their physicians in Saskatchewan.
No new methadone clinics or addictions programs will be put forth to accommodate OxyContin addicts, as the Ministry of Health said existing treatment programs will suffice, Smith said.
“We’re not specifically creating any new programs, the programs in place are geared towards addictions and more broadly encourage people to make connections with physicians and programs within the community,” Smith said.
“The plan going forward is strengthening criteria to help encourage appropriate use of the drug.”
Douglas Spitzig, the director of the Prescription Review Program, said in the past five years Saskatchewan had seen an estimated 40 per cent increase in OxyContin use.
Spitzig also said that the “tamper-proof” measures added to the new OxyNEO drug may not prevent addicts from trying to extract the opiate chemical from the drug for illicit use.
“We have found in the past that given enough time, for some reason the people who misuse and abuse these drugs somehow find a way to bypass the aspect that prevented them from being abused,” he said.
“Addiction is addiction and just because you cut off the supply doesn’t mean the appetite is going to go away.”
Health Canada has warned that OxyContin, taken in pill form, is a long-acting form of the highly addictive opioid oxycodone. But when the pill is chewed or crushed, then injected or inhaled, it produces a “heroin-like euphoria.”
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