No Pills for Nob Hill

The drugstore cowboys won't be lassoing the Nob Hill Pharmacy this time around the block.

To deter potential thieves, the historic pharmacy at Northwest 21st Avenue and Glisan Street will no longer stock OxyContin, the brand name for an addictive narcotic rapidly gaining popularity on the streets of Portland.

The Nob Hill Pharmacy played a bit part in Gus Van Sant's 1989 cult film Drugstore Cowboy, which starred Matt Dillon, Kelly Lynch and Heather Graham as a band of pillheads who break into pharmacies to, uh, steal drugs.

The pharmacy was an easy target in the film, but in real life, its manager, Brian Rosenthal, is trying to reduce the risk of ripoffs. "I realize that holdups are a nature of our business sometimes," Rosenthal says. "But with the present situation, we don't want to be encouraging it. We'd rather keep them from coming in in the first place."

Rosenthal says he'll be glad to fill prescriptions if people call in advance, but he won't keep any extra in stock.

Although OxyContin abuse is more common on the East Coast, West Coast pharmacies are increasingly being targeted for theft, says Rosenthal, who notes that several local drugstores have been robbed in recent months.

Patients suffering chronic, debilitating pain have hailed OxyContin as a wonder drug because of its unique 12-hour time-release mechanism. But the pills have also become popular on the black market, where users crush the tablets to destroy the time-release mechanism, then snort or inject the resulting powder, known in some parts as "hillbilly heroin," for an intense high.

Nob Hill sells a bottle of 100 pills of OxyContin, each containing 80 milligrams of the drug, for $350. But the street price is roughly $1 per milligram, according to Rosenthal, or $8,000 per bottle. "It adds up," says Rosenthal. "You do the math."

The drug's surge in popularity has brought tragic but predictable results. Some 30 Oregonians have died in association with OxyContin overdose since 1999, according to the Oregon Department of Human Services. "It's a super-addictive drug," says Larry Langdon, information specialist for the Regional Drug Initiative. "There's alarming stuff going on."

"It's a relatively potent beast," says Kevin Neely, spokesperson for Attorney General Hardy Myers. "We are keeping a close eye on it."

WWeek 2015