Oxy's Offspring

Nancy Green had never heard of the prescription painkiller OxyContin when the first addict showed up at her office in the fall of 2000. Track marks studded the young woman's arm. And she was seven-months pregnant. Green, a certified nurse midwife in the remote Maine town of Calais, has now become a drug counselor--and a reluctant expert on Maine's epidemic of narcotic abuse. Of the 40 babies Green delivered last year, 10 were born to women hooked on opiates--and OxyContin was their drug of choice. Many babies suffered withdrawal in the nursery, crying inconsolably, shaking with tremors and fighting diarrhea, fever and convulsions. "The baby is getting the same drug as the mother," says Dr. Loretta Finnegan, an expert on opiates and pregnancy. "There's no barrier at all."

First designed to treat severe, chronic pain, OxyContin--a synthetic form of heroin--took hold as a street drug. OxyContin abuse swept through parts of Appalachia and rural New England. The drug's maker, Purdue Pharma, has tried to salvage its sullied name, offering grants to anti-drug groups (Green got $5,000) and launching a $6 million ad campaign preaching the perils of prescription-drug abuse. Despite those efforts, towns like Calais have begun ... // 73% Remaining