The number of patients resorting to oxycodone, one in particular addictive opioid drugshas increased “alarmingly” in recent years in France, the French Society of Pharmacology (SFPT) said today.

SFPT is warning about the dangers of this substance, the drug recently found at the center of the “opioid crisis” in the US. “Its prescription in France is progressively increasing alarmingly, even though it has no pharmacological benefit compared to morphine,” he added.

Oxycodone can be much more addictive than morphine and also has no advantage in terms of frequent side effects. Painkiller deaths attributable to oxycodone quadrupled in the US between 2013-17. In 2019, 23 such deaths were recorded in France.

“After a surgery, it is enough to give opioids for 15 days. We would like to see if a part of the population is being prescribed for a longer period of time, which could lead us to the conclusion that abuse is taking place,” explained Professor Francesco Salvo, the head of the Bordeaux regional pharmacovigilance centre.

When asked if the companies’ commercial policy could be responsible for this increase, Salvo replied that he had no proof. “But I can’t rule it out, given what’s happened with opioids in the history of medicine,” he added.

Pharmaceutical laboratories and distribution companies in the US are accused of aggressively promoting opioid drugs such as oxycodone since 1996. Their dangers became more widely known in the mid-2010s, when overdose deaths, whether from prescription drugs or synthetic drugs such as fentanyl, rose dramatically. About 600,000 people died within 20 years.