With a rogue drug now fully in vogue among narcotics habitues, a Folsom man's recent arrest underscores a national epidemic of pharmacy robberies.

The illegally advertised painkiller Oxycontin was on Pierre Williams' mind and possibly — in fast-ebbing measure — in his blood when he allegedly rob-bed a Granite Bay Walgreen's pharmacist March 19.

Crushed up and shot up, Oxycontin works for junkies, and unlike its sister morphine or its big brother heroin, it can be stolen with about the same moxie as required to snag a suitcase of suds from 7-11.

It's used intravenously by Folsom teens. It's what caused possibly the sole feeling of embarrassment ever had by Rush Limbaugh. And, as long as its marketing to pharmacists remains defended vigorously by the federal government, it is here to stay.

"I talked to a 17-year-old girl recently," said Lt. Sheldon Sterling of the Folsom Police Depart-ment. "All of the people in the car were IV oxy users."

The car rolled up to a Citrus Heights house that was under Folsom police surveillance, and arrests were made, said Sgt. Rick Hillman.

"We're seeing guys getting prescription medication, usually to a forged prescription, or where their girlfriends will go to a doctor," Hillman said. "Often, females are less suspicious, because they use makeup to cover the sores on their face. They come from scratching an itch that feels like bugs are coming out of your face."

At the arrests recently, "One guy had mascara in his pocket," Hillman said. "Between him and his brother, they had 350 pills of Oxycontin."

Folsom pharmacist Bill Cowley said, "We see some signs of addiction among customers. We've seen instances of divorce. And we don't like the high robbery risk. But for cancer patients there's a legitimate use."

Home medicine cabinets and parents' prescriptions were probably the first encounter with Oxycontin for some young addicts here and elsewhere, Sterling said.

"The federal Department of Justice is trying to educate parents, 'Don't worry so much about what your kids are getting on the streets, but about what's in the medicine cabinet,'" he said.

On the street in Folsom, Oxycontin pills of 40 milligrams go for $20 apiece, and 80s can fetch $50, Hillman said. A preferred customer gets a discount, and can resell pills easily at a profit, he said.

"We've had a couple recent heroin arrests," Hillman said. "Oxy freaks are stepping up to harder drugs."

Purdue Pharma officials pled guilty in May 2007 to falsely advertising that Oxycontin had little addictive potential.

Several states complained that Purdue Pharma encouraged physicians to prescribe the 12-hour time release drug for use every eight hours, contrary to a federally approved dosage, according to Wikipedia.

None of that mattered for the federal Food and Drug Administration, the agency that set the approved dose.

"The fact that the sponsor misrepresented OxyContin's addictive potential does not negate the findings of safety and effectiveness of the drug when used properly," said Susan Cruzan, FDA spokeswoman.

For reasons not clear, when talking of Oxycontin, FDA officials have been notably slow to call Oxycontin addictive. It was approved in 1995.

As of August 2001 for Oxycontin, FDA didn't use a standard definition of "addiction," which according to the Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary is "a compulsive physiological (physical) need for and use of a habit-forming substance."

Instead, the "physical dependency" Oxycontin will cause "is not the same thing as addiction," an agency Web posting states, written in August 2001, but still up on the Web.

"(Addiction) represents a situation in which people obtain and take narcotics because of a psychological need," the agency states in the posting.

By this definition, heroin and morphine don't count as addictive.

Agency spokeswoman Cruzan said FDA currently regards heroin, morphine and Oxycontin as addictive, but couldn't explain the still-current Web posting on "frequently asked questions" about Oxycontin.

Heroin is a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance under U.S. law. Oxycontin is a Schedule 2 Controlled Substance.

This is not the way most of the world treats it.

Oxycontin is a "most strongly controlled" substance in the countries of Germany, Canada, Holland, Austria, Japan, Australia and South Africa, "to name but a few," according to Wikipedia.

Oxycontin is more expensive than morphine, said Placerville pharmacist Dennis Holland. Morphine products have a time-release, just like Oxycontin does, he said. But Oxycontin's time-release is "more sophisticated," Holland said.

"It's sad that people abuse a good thing," he, said.

Folsom pharmacist Pete Hagens said he'd worked at a cancer center, and that Oxycontin is a great cancer-pain medicine.

But, the current level of abuse and mounting pharmacy robberies shouldn't be ignored, he said.

"That question (of whether it should be banned or not) needs to be looked at by the whole medical community," Hagens said.

The Telegraph's Roger Phelps can be reached at rogerp@goldcountrymedia.com, or post a comment at folsomtelegraph.com