The manufacturer of OxyContin is offering training to teachers in rural areas of Maine and other states where abuse of the drug and other prescription painkillers is a severe problem.

Connecticut-based PurduePharma is spending $100,000 to train educators to teach business skills. The logic is that bleak economic prospects can lead people to abuse drugs.

“When you’re looking at why drug abuse occurs in communities, one of those factors is just a sense of hopelessness,” said Pamela Bennett, the company’s director of advocacy. “This [entrepreneurial training] broadens kids’ horizons, gives them hope and gives them life skills.”

The company is offering the training to teachers elsewhere, too – in Kentucky, West Virginia and Virginia.

OxyContin is a pain medication that, when taken properly, is released over time into the body to give relief to people who suffer from chronic pain.

But some drug abusers extract a concentrated rush from the pill, similar to the sensation from heroin. They snort it or inject it after breaking up the pills, bypassing the time-release safeguard.

The prescription drug problem in Washington County has become so severe that officials cite it as an impediment to economic development and as a significant public health issue.

OxyContin has been dubbed “Washington County heroin” in Maine and “hillbilly heroin” in parts of Appalachia.

PurduePharma, which has been criticized for its aggressive marketing of OxyContin and canceled plans to distribute a 160-milligram dosage of the pill, has trained doctors to spot fraud and is working to develop a pain medication that cannot be easily abused.

The company also will train 20 teachers in the four states to teach entrepreneurship to try to improve the economic outlook for young people in areas where the drug is abused.

In Maine, the company has offered scholarships and travel to five high school teachers to attend training this month put on by the National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurs.

Dianne Tilton, director of the Sunrise County Economic Development Council, said if the drug company is trying to better its image, she’s glad it chose teaching business skills as the mechanism.

“It’s smart for PurduePharma to make that kind of investment. Economic hardship creates despair, and despair creates destructive habits,” she said. “Knowing possibilities is one of the things that gives people hope.”