Facts from www.oxyconned.com

[lostparent]

- Sales of OxyContin in 1996: $25 million.
- OxyContin related emergency room visits in 1996: 100
- Sales of OxyContin in 2004: $1.9 billion.
- OxyContin related emergency room visits in 2003: 15,000.
- Increase since 1994 in the number of people nationwide needing emergency medical help for OxyContin use:  352%
- Percentage of high school seniors nationwide who reported using OxyContin illicitly during the past year. 4.5%
- Number of OxyContin units sold in 2003: 6,598,000
- Percentage of Purdue Pharma annual revenues attributed to OxyContin: 75%
- Opioid overdose deaths in Massachusetts in 1990: 94.
- Opioid overdose deaths in Massachusetts in 2001: 487.
- Deaths linked to OxyContin by medical examiners between 2000 and 2002: 464
- Percentage of addicts admitted to Tennessee clinics for OxyContin addiction in 2001: 21%
- Percentage of addicts admitted to Tennessee clinics for OxyContin addiction in 2003: 62%
- Increase in teen admissions to St. Elizabeth's Addiction program in Boston for OxyContin addiction: 760%
- Percentage of OxyContin addicts nationwide who began their addictions with a prescription from their doctor: 56%
- Number of OxyContin prescriptions written in 2003: 7,000,000
- Rank of the state of Maine in population: 39
- Rank of the state of Maine in oxycodone consumption: 7
- Number of times a single doctor in Washington billed Medicaid for office visits to prescribe OxyContin: 10,473
- Amount the Florida Medicaid program paid a single doctor for illegal OxyContin prescriptions in 2003: $69,400
- Number of OxyContin pills per month one Tennessee patient was prescribed: 1000, or one pill every 44 minutes.

[trying2helpU]

Wow.  I've always known that the numbers were mind-boggling, but having a lot of them together in 1 post... that's just scary.  It doesn't take a genius to see that this problem is increasing EXPONENTIALLY.
Then again, as long as Purdue is making a lot of money and paying their taxes, who cares right?  Sigh, just keep paying off those lawsuits from the money you're printing in the basement, I mean from the pills you're making in the lab.