Deb Ware watched her son,Sam,deteriorate and withdraw into drug addiction.Credit:Wolter Peeters
Deb had no reason to think that a simple packet of Panadeine Forte could pave the way for so much heartbreak. But it wasn't long before Sam got hooked on the codeine contained in the tablets,yearning for that feeling he’d get when the opioid bound to the receptors in his brain and elicited a warm,buzzy rush that makes the drug so powerful.
Back then,codeine was still available over the counter,so he’d buy a packet from the chemist and pop a couple of pills a week. Soon his intake grew to 40 pills a day,then 100 or more. Eventually his body became so tolerant of the drug that he started doctor-shopping for something stronger. Oxycodone,endone,targin and tramadol provided the high he was after.
Deb watched the boy she’d raised turn into an unrecognisable shadow of his former self. Family and friends were cast aside as Sam would spend his days visiting multiple GPs in pursuit of multiple prescriptions. Once,she recalls,he hurt his back at work and ended up getting a CT scan showing he had a slightly bulged disc. The hunt for opioids suddenly became even easier.
“It was like his ticket,” the Central Coast mother recalls. “He’d take those results everywhere.”
Opioid pharmaceuticals are regularly prescribed by GPs to ease pain,and people with chronic conditions say they genuinely need them to survive. But as an epidemic in usage has shown,they can be highly addictive,are commonly misused and are potentially deadly.