it was another opioid, a chemical cousin of morphine—and also of heroin. But oxycodone was much more potent than morphine. The drug was already widely available as a painkiller, in mild treatments like Percodan and Percocet. But there was only a small amount of oxycodone in those pills, because in Percodan it was mixed with aspirin and in Percocet it was mixed with acetaminophen, both of which can be toxic if a person takes too much of them. If you deployed pure oxycodone using the Contin system, however, it might be possible to administer a larger dose that would filter slowly into the
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