Drug Trials For Painkiller Addicts

Pill-popping addicts could get dope through NYU Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital - just like heroin junkies receive methadone - to wean them off the prescription pain killers that have bedeviled celebrities such as Anna Nicole Smith and Rush Limbaugh, The Post has learned.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse is launching its first large scale Prescription Opiate Addiction Treatment Study at 12 sites across the country, including the NYU/Bellevue primary-care clinic. The drug trials will test the effectiveness of buprenorphone/naloxone tablets - marketed as Suboxone - to break patients' addictions to painkillers such as Vicodin and OxyContin. The tablets will be accompanied by different levels of drug-abuse counseling, a key aspect of the study.

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