Drug abuse

... TownOnline.com - Local News: Prescription for addiction A:hover {color: CC6600} Home The Register Local News RSS Feed Prescription for addiction By Donna Tunney/ dtunney@cnc.com Thursday, March 30, 2006 E-mail article View text version View most popular Cape Cod Drug Task Force investigations Cocaine: 50 percent Heroin: 25 percent Pharmaceuticals: 12 percent Other: 13 percent - Lt.

John Allen, Cape Cod Drug Task Force OxyContin-heroin connection alters traditional drug culture The car crash didn't kill him, but the OxyContin almost did.

Meet Ed, a Provincetown native and recovering drug addict, whose last name is withheld for his privacy.

At 30 years old, Ed has a sad, scary history of addictions, arrests and incarcerations - enough to curl your hair.

Ed was already a drug user prone to addictions at the time of his accident when he was 19.

Then his doctors allowed him to fill and refill prescriptions for OxyContin, the intensely addictive opiate.

Ed managed to sustain his habit for nearly six years, going from doctor to doctor, pharmacy to pharmacy and emergency room to emergency room, finagling prescription after prescription.

"All the drug addicts on the Cape know who the compliant doctors are and how to play the pharmacies.

There was this one gay doctor - all you had to do was flirt with him to get what you needed," Ed says in the basement of a Mid-Cape facility run by Gosnold Cape Cod, the non-profit detoxification and r...

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