Hillbilly Heroin fears grow after Ledger's death

HEATH Ledger's death has focused attention on a new wave of drug abuse that is sweeping Hollywood and has found its way to Australia.

HEATH Ledger's death has focused attention on a new wave of drug abuse that is sweeping Hollywood and has found its way to Australia.

The 28-year-old actor was killed by a cocktail of six prescription drugs but the one the US Drug Enforcement Agency is most interested in is oxycodone, an opium derivative better known as OxyContin.

US authorities have blamed spikes in criminal activity as well as perhaps 1000 deaths on abuse of the drug, known as Hillbilly Heroin, whose use has exploded since it hit the US market in 1996.

A recent drugs survey showed illicit use of the prescription painkiller had also increased in Australia in the past two years.

The survey last October by the Illicit Drug Reporting System survey found the rate of injection of pharmaceutical opioids such as morphine and oxycodone had increased by 50per cent since 2005.

Oxocodone is highly addictive and, when crushed and snorted, or dissolved in water to be injected, gives users similar sensations to heroin. Its abuse has spread through the US and has reached Hollywood.