Philly father warns others after son dies

Ed Bisch will see the headstone for the first time today.

It will be a hard Father's Day for the Philadelphia man whose son died four months ago from misusing OxyContin and alcohol.

Eddie Bisch was 18.

'He was number 21 or 22 to die from Oxy and alcohol during a three-month period in Philadelphia. I didn't even know anything about this drug. What if parents number 10 would have said something• Maybe I could have talked with Eddie,' Bisch said.

After 'beating myself up for several months,' Bisch established a Web site to warn people about misusing the medicine. He doesn't blame the makers of OxyContin, but he wants them to keep up efforts to educate people.

Drug handles severe pain

OxyContin's delayed release formula is a blessing to cancer patients and others with moderate to severe pain because one pill can give as much as 12 hours of relief. But if OxyContin is misused, it can become the stuff of addiction or a good way to earn a toe tag in the coroner's office.

Several hundred people have died in the Northeast from Oxy misuse in recent years. Many who die from a overdose also mix the drug with alcohol and other prescription drugs. Bisch found out many weeks after Eddie's death that he had taken another drug, Xanax, earlier in the day.

He then met with friends, chewed the pill to get a high, then washed it down with alcohol. Eddie's younger sister found him.

'From my research I found out Oxy is a real problem in the Pittsburgh area and across the state,' said Bisch.

'Is this a problem• Absolutely,' said State Police Major Ty Blocker, who heads the state police narcotics force. 'It's also a problem across the country.'

One reason is that many parents and youngsters don't know the facts about the medicine. That's why, since spring, Bisch has visited schools on his days off to talk warn kids about using drugs.

He doesn't want them surprised like he was on that terrible day in February.

'I sure Eddie didn't know how dangerous this can be,' Bisch said. 'I talked with Eddie about drinking and heroin. In neighborhood they sell it in bags for $5 and $10. I'm sure he wouldn't take it. But this other drug• I didn't even know about it.'

Abuse in the Valley

Some Alle-Kiski fathers wish they didn't know about the drug. But they do. It's affecting their families and they're trying to help children to kick the habit.

There are many more people in the Valley hooked on crack and alcohol than OxyContin, the men agree. But that doesn't lessen the danger of abusing the medicine, said the fathers, one of whom is from Kiski Township and the other from Harmar.

The Kiski dad hates the drug that caused a harrowing experience for him. 'I had to perform CPR on my own son to save his life,' the father said.

He has struggled to get the young man to stop the drug.

Some people misuse the drug to get high. Others sell it because of greed, the fathers said.

State and local police say each Oxy can be sold for $40 to $60 per pill in the Valley, so a profit motive also pushes the addiction.

Because OxyContin is widely prescribed for pain control, it can be found in many Valley medicine chests. People might visit three or more doctors to complain of that killer bad back or unbearable knee pain. Frequently addicts walk away with more than one prescription.

From there it's simple: keep one bottle of 90 pills, then fill the others at other pharmacies and sell the pills.

Physicians know about the good properties of the medicine because its manufacturer has aggressively told them how it can help cancer patients in particular.

Some states wonder if the company went to far.

On Friday seven addicts and families in Virginia sued Perdue Pharma - the company that makes OxyContin. Last Monday West Virginia filed a suit claiming that the company improperly marketed the drug. West Virginia said its Medicaid program paid $4.6 million to pay Oxy claims in 2000.

The company has met with officials from a half-dozen states. It has agreed to change its marketing practices, issue tamper-proof prescription pads and take other measures.

Perdue Pharma also is trying to reformulate the drug so that it loses its effectiveness if the pills are chewed or ground up, said company spokesman Jim Heins.

He declined to comment about the lawsuits.

Chuck Biedka can be reached at cbiedka@tribweb.com .