Recently, the pharmaceutical company Purdue Pharma announced that it would stop marketing its drug OxyContin (oxycodone) to doctors.

Could this move be a welcome step in fighting the opioid/opiate epidemic? Or, more cynically, could it be a move that appears to fight the epidemic in word but not in deed?

As you may have heard, Purdue and other pharmaceutical companies heavily promoted opioids/opiates to doctors beginning in the 1990s. Writing in the New Yorker, Dr. Celine Gounder stated that “Between 1999 and 2010, sales of these “opioid analgesics [opioid painkillers]”—medications like Vicodin, Percocet, and OxyContin—quadrupled.”

Since doctors issued more prescriptions for OxyContin and other prescription drugs, more people used them. But prescriptions, by nature, are limited. People can’t obtain them unless they have doctors prescriptions, so when they use all of their drugs, they might have problems acquiring more.

There have also been allegations that the effects of such drugs might not last as long as manufacturers said they would last, which could prompt people to take more drugs (and run out of the drugs more quickly than they have planned).

If people use all of their drugs and their prescriptions expire, people who have become accustomed to taking such painrelieving drugs might take extreme measures to obtain more drugs or similar drugs. They might:

• Visit multiple doctors to try to obtain new prescriptions, a practice known as doctor shopping.
• Steal drugs from others or buy prescription drugs from drug dealers.
• Use other drugs (such as heroin) that are similar to their prescriptions.

These are signs that people could be addicted to opioids such as OxyContin. Ending the promotion of OxyContin could be a good way to keep that particular drug away from people.

But that won’t stop addiction. As we’ve seen, people might turn to other drugs. There are also generic drugs that a similar to OxyContin. Some people argue that Purdue is not marketing OxyContin because the generic drugs are taking business from OxyContin, so the company is not making money off of the drug like it once did.

Further, pharmaceutical companies also market their drugs overseas. Could agreeing not to market drugs in the United States mean that companies are just turning to marketing their drugs in quieter, more international ways? These questions illustrate just how complex drug manufacturing, marketing, prescribing, and using really are.