Oxycontin News Blog

Krull said it was the first death from the drug he knew of in Sioux Falls. He gave few details of the investigation, but drug treatment professionals say they are starting to see other evidence of OxyContin abuse in the area.

"The talk happens first, then the trend is trackable. And all we've seen or heard in the recent past is that Oxy is available in Sioux Falls," said Darcy Jensen, director of Prairie View Prevention Services.

Carol Regier of Keystone Treatment Center in Canton said she has started to see a few cases of addiction among young people.

"We aren't seeing a lot yet, but we are starting to see it." She said most take it from relatives with prescriptions or get it from friends, but some buy it illegally.

She said colleagues on the East Coast have been seeing cases of OxyContin addiction for a decade. Jensen said she has not seen any cases in the seven school districts her agency serves and hopes the trend does not spread to Sioux Falls.

"What would be scary for me and our staff is thinking about students having access to that and not understanding the ramifications, how powerful a prescription medication it is," she said. "Youth tend to be risk-takers, and so the concern I have is that we get the word out that this is a dangerous drug."

Three insidious factors make OxyContin dangerous. Addiction sets in quickly, an addict's tolerance grows to where he or she needs the drug several times a day and the withdrawal symptoms are serious and last for up to a week.

"It's like a real bad flu. They ache, they have vomiting, diarrhea," Regier said.

And she said because it is an opioid - it mimics the effects of opium - it can slow a person's breathing to the point of death.

That's what it might have done to Berdahl on Monday.

Treating the addiction recently got easier because of a drug called buprenorphine, which eases withdrawal symptoms, Regier said. After the symptoms pass, patients receive counseling for several more weeks to address the underlying causes of the addiction, she said.

But she and other professionals say it is best to catch people before they go down that road.

"This is one that'll grab you real quickly," she said.

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