Though Purdue claimed it had no idea of the drug’s abuse problems until February 2000, Wright had signed off on a 1995-filed NDA review that spelled out how crushing the tablets would lead to immediate, rather than controlled, release of the drug; that withdrawal symptoms had been witnessed in several patients during clinical trials; and that 68 percent of the oxycodone was in fact recoverable from one single, crushed-up pill when liquefied and injected.
