Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic

by Sam Quinones

The FDA approved a unique warning label for OxyContin. It allowed Purdue to claim that OxyContin had a lower potential for abuse than other oxycodone products because its timed-release formula allowed for a delay in absorbing the drug. “No other manufacturer of a Schedule II narcotic ever got the go-ahead from the FDA to make such a claim,” Meier wrote. “It was a claim that soon became a cornerstone of the marketing of OxyContin.” The warning label also inadvertently told addicts how to abuse the pill, warning patients not to crush the tablets because that would release “a potentially toxic amount of the drug.” That was like an invitation to a junkie. A 2003 U.S. GAO report on the company’s OxyContin marketing efforts, requested by members of Congress, found that the FDA didn’t realize that “the drug could be dissolved in water and injected.”