A survey by the Louisville Courier-Journal finds that 345 Kentuckians have died from methadone overdoses since January 2003. The drug is used as a painkiller and to treat heroin addiction.

Dan Smoot, head of law enforcement for a federally funded anti-drug task force in Hazard called Operation UNITE, said tighter control on OxyContin has led to the increase in methadone misuse.

"Most of your big pain-treatment centers and doctors quit prescribing as much OxyContin and started prescribing methadone," said Smoot.

Data from the Cabinet for Health Services shows that Kentucky physicians wrote 130,000 prescriptions for OxyContin in 2003, down from more than 150,000 prescriptions in 2001. However, methadone prescriptions increased by 340,000 to almost 2.7 million during the same time period.

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