Oxycontin: Hollywood's new favourite drug

Oxycontin, a drug that is used for safe pain management, is becoming one of the most abused and misused drugs in Hollywood.

The drug, known on the street as OC, O and hillbilly heroin, becomes menacingly dangerous if used inappropriately.

Police officials revealed that not only Michael Jackson was 'heavily addicted' to Oxycontin before he died, but also Adam 'DJ AM' Goldstein downed several pills in his system at the time of his death two years ago.

Whereas Courtney Love suffered an overdose of the medication in 2003, the same year radio personality Rush Limbaugh sought professional help for his addiction to the drug.

Even Heath Ledger was also prescribed the drug prior to his fatal overdose.

"In my opinion, the OxyContin problem is in epidemic proportions," addiction specialist Clare Kavin told Fox News.

"Regardless of the number of warnings and the related news in the media from the last few years, there is still a significant number of patients that are chained to this addiction and are scared or unable to seek treatment due to shame, financial means or fear of relapse," Kavin said.

Kavin also insisted that the drug is mainly a hot favourite among celebrities because of its hefty price tag.

"Oxycontin can be very expensive, at usually 20 to 40 dollars for a single pill," she said. "We have seen celebrities that have spent thousands of dollars a week in order to have these pills delivered directly to them," she added.

Los Angeles-based addiction specialist, Dr. Adi Jaffe, even added that the drug can be equivalently strong as heroin and there is hardy any difference between getting addicted to OxyContin and having an addiction to heroin.