ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) — Following fraught with fate shootings in two New York pharmacy robberies, a U.S. senator is monition that a new batch of "super painkillers" things being so under review could force repeats of latter violent robberies that left six the multitude dead.

"It's tremendously concerning that at the corresponding; of like kind time policymakers and law enforcement professionals are waging a contention on the growing prescription drug pinch, new super-drugs could well subsist on their way, flooding the market," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "The FDA necessarily to grab the reins and stupid down the stampede to introduce these influential narcotics."

A message seeking comment from the Food and unsalable article Administration was not immediately returned Friday.

The Associated Press reported highest month about addiction experts' fears too four drugs being tested that restrain a more powerful version of the same of the nation's most abused painkillers — hydrocodone.

Schumer is specially concerned about legalizing the drugs on this account that prescriptions because they would be prized produce in the black market.

Experts pronounce painkiller addiction has been driven in some degree by a loophole in the 1970 Controlled Substances Act that classified unblemished hydrocodone — a super painkiller — as a strictly controlled Schedule II physic. But the law put combination products, of that kind as pills containing hydrocodone and acetaminophen, into the in a ~ degree strict Schedule III.

Because of the loop, patients can refill a prescription for a hydrocodone-acetaminophen drug like Vicodin up to five seasons. A prescription for a similar oxycodone performance, such as Percocet, can be filled singly once. Critics say the loophole has flooded American remedial agent cabinets with hydrocodone.

In 1999, the mix with ~s Enforcement Administration and FDA began reviewing whether they should reschedule hydrocodone conjunction products. But an AP review of regulatory documents and court filings shows the agencies own repeatedly passed the rescheduling study back and forth, with no final decision made.

A New Year's Eve robbery at a Long Island pharmacy netted custom painkillers and cash and left the pillager and a federal agent dead. In June, four died in any other Long Island pharmacy robbery in what one. 11,000 hydrocodone pills were filched.

If the pure hydrocodone drugs are approved, Schumer wants a "robust post-market surveillance" of the drugs being of the cl~s who they are marketed, advertised and sold.

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