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Side Effect or Disease?
By I. C. Abiff 19/07/2001
"Have you [Mohammad] seen him who has taken as his
ilah [god] his own vain desire? Would you then be a wakil [disposer of his affairs or a guardian] over him" (Surat Al Furqan, 25:43)?
Although a necessity of life, health can become a "vain desire" in cases where a person demands that their health problems, which may have taken years to develop, be cured overnight. The Qur'an says, "... and when I sicken, then He (Allah) heals me" (Surat Al-Shu'ara, 26:80). The essence of Islam is that "Allah is with the patient." Today's healthcare industry has little time for patience. The general consensus in modern medicine is that a "quick cure" is a superior one and that any consequences can and should be dealt with later. This has given pharmaceutical companies the green light to mass-produce "super pills" that are seen as superior to prophetic medicine in many circles.
However, "quick cures" usually come with a price. While these pills work wonders on the ailments they were designed to treat, they also "create" other ailments, which are usually referred to as "side-effects." Although many "side-effects" can be considered diseases in and of themselves, the fact that they were caused by a medicine keeps them safe under the umbrella of "side-effect". In fact, sometimes a
second drug needs to be administered in order to "cure" the "side-effects" resulting from the first drug (Graedon, p.2). Furthermore, the "side-effects" of some drugs are so enjoyable that they have become part of the underground illegal drug market (Breggin, p.43).
One such drug, OxyContin, is gaining national attention. It is often prescribed for the treatment of acute pain and is categorized as an
Opioid - along with other drugs like Morphine, codeine, Meperidene
(Demorol) and Oxycodone. Experts advise against routinely prescribing
opioids, citing that they do more harm than good (webmd.com).
OxyContin abuse first came onto the scene in rural Maine and Appalachia. Factors leading to its explosion are attributed to a poor economy, a scarcity of cocaine and heroin, and large populations of elderly people who use the drug to relieve the pain of cancer and other illnesses.
But, the latest problem resulting from opiods comes from the fact that the illegal drug market has been actively seeking way of acquiring the drug, often violently. Armed robbers looking for the powerful painkiller
OxyContin have hit a dozen drug stores around the Boston, Massachusetts area over the past three months - a sign that the "hillbilly
heroin" has moved into the urban Northeast.
Gunmen in baseball caps and face-masks bound a pharmacist and two clerks with duct tape on Sunday, July 1st, 2001 and stole the drug from "Wells Drugs" in the Boston suburb of Woburn. The same day, another gun-wielding robber hit the "Brooks Pharmacy" in Somerville. The robberies came in the wake of reports released last year by police, pharmacists and drug counselors on the alarming incidence of
OxyContin abuse in rural areas of Maine, Virginia, West Virginia and Ohio.
"The problem first arose in rural areas. Now it's quickly migrated to more populous areas," said Charles Miller, spokesman for the National Drug Intelligence Center, a division of the U.S. Justice Department. "There's a large potential for it to spread very rapidly."
"In the last six months, we've had a huge increase in the number of losses resulting from
OxyContin," said Chuck Young, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Pharmacy. "Employee theft has contributed to the problem," he went on to say.
Detective Lt. James Pierce, who heads a group of Massachusetts detectives investigating the robberies around Boston, said he is worried that someone is going to get hurt. "They're obviously getting more brazen," Pierce said.
Pharmacists are on edge. Paul Hackett tells his employees never to be alone in his Weymouth pharmacy, where someone tried - but failed - to break in last week. He said that
OxyContin should be reclassified so its theft or misuse would result in stiffer penalties (Green, p.18).
OxyContin, also known as "Oxy" or " OC," has become one of the most abused prescription drugs in the greater Cincinnati area and across rural areas of eastern Kentucky, Western Virginia and Southwestern West Virginia.
Law enforcement officials have nicknamed OxyContin the "heroin of the Midwest," since its symptoms are almost exactly identical to those of heroin withdrawal - tremors, sweating, shaking, and loss of bowel control (Goetz, p.1).
Those are some pretty interesting "side-effects" aren't they? Perhaps with this latest example of "quick cures" gone awry, the subject of "side effects" will be taken more seriously in the future. For if "... they denied the truth when it came unto them, there will come unto them the tidings of that which they used to deride" (Surat Al-An'am, 6:5).
Sources
Breggin, Peter R. "Reclaiming Our Children: The Healing of a Nation in Crisis." New York: Perseus Press. 2000.
Goetz, Kristina. "OxyContin plan in Ky. is 3-way."
The Cincinnati Enquirer. March 15, 2001.
Graedon, Joe and Graedon, Teresa, Phd. "Deadly Drug Interactions." New York: St. Martin's Griffin. 1997.
Green, Paul. "The Real Drug Suppliers." The Virgin Islands Daily News. July 4, 2001.
Shaefer, Walt. "OxyContin: Pain Drug Becomes the Heroin of the Midwest."
The Cincinnati Enquirer. July 4, 2001.
The Agency for Healthcare Policy and Research. "Pain Control After Surgery." webmd.com. Feb. 1993.
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