Oxycodone vs OxyContin vs Percocet vs Hydrocodone: Two Drugs, Many Containers

A pill that did not come from a pharmacy may contain fentanyl, whatever it looks like, and street drugs can also contain sedatives such as xylazine that naloxone does not reverse, so give it anyway.

Side by side

Three of the four names in the title are oxycodone. Hydrocodone is the odd one out: a separate opioid with similar uses, usually sold with acetaminophen, the drug in Tylenol, in the same kind of combination tablet as Percocet. What separates the brands is the tablet, which decides how fast the opioid arrives, how long it keeps arriving, and what comes with it. The table puts them side by side, with MS Contin (morphine) added because it is the other extended-release tablet people compare OxyContin to. Everything in it comes from the FDA labels on DailyMed and the FDA’s Drugs@FDA database, except the last row.

The last row is the morphine milligram equivalent (MME) factor from the CDC’s 2022 opioid prescribing guideline. It is approximate. The CDC says outright not to use it to work out a dose when switching one opioid for another, because tolerance does not carry over cleanly and people vary. Use it to compare, and leave dose changes to the prescriber.

Is oxycodone the same as OxyContin?

Same drug. Different tablet. Every milligram of OxyContin is oxycodone hydrochloride, the same molecule as in a generic immediate-release tablet. What differs is the delivery.

In the Roxicodone label’s studies, immediate-release oxycodone reached its peak blood level in about one to two and a half hours on average, and it is labeled for use every four to six hours as needed. OxyContin is built to release its oxycodone slowly over about 12 hours and is labeled for use every 12 hours. Its label limits it to severe and persistent pain that cannot be adequately treated with other options, including immediate-release opioids, and says plainly that it is not an as-needed painkiller. The 60 and 80 mg tablets are only for people who are already opioid-tolerant.

The 12 hours come from the tablet, not the molecule. The label gives an apparent half-life of 4.5 hours after OxyContin and 3.2 hours after immediate-release oxycodone, and calls oxycodone’s elimination half-life short. The drug inside is the same short-acting opioid, which makes the tablet itself the safety feature. Break the tablet and the feature is gone.

Can you crush or snort OxyContin?

The label’s boxed warning answers it: crushing, chewing, or dissolving the tablet can cause rapid release and absorption of a potentially fatal dose of oxycodone. That is a dose meant to spread over twelve hours arriving at once. The current tablet is made with ingredients intended to make it harder to manipulate, and the label says studies suggest it should reduce abuse through the nose and by injection. It also says abuse by those routes, and by mouth, is still possible. The MS Contin label carries a matching boxed warning about crushing.

The original OxyContin is gone

The OxyContin sold today is a reformulation. The original tablet is no longer marketed, and in 2013 the FDA formally determined that it had been withdrawn from sale for reasons of safety or effectiveness and said it would not approve generic copies of it. Anyone describing what “OxyContin” used to do to people is describing a tablet pharmacies no longer stock. The oxycodone in today’s version is the same drug it always was.

Is Percocet the same as oxycodone?

Percocet is oxycodone plus 325 mg of acetaminophen in each tablet. The strengths are written as two numbers, such as 5/325 or 10/325. The first number is the oxycodone, the second the acetaminophen. Endocet and the generic “oxycodone and acetaminophen” tablets are the same combination.

So yes, Percocet contains oxycodone. No, it is not plain oxycodone, and the difference matters most to the people taking more than prescribed.

The acetaminophen is a second risk

Acetaminophen has its own ceiling. The hydrocodone and acetaminophen label states that acetaminophen has been associated with acute liver failure, at times resulting in liver transplant and death, and that most cases involve more than 4,000 milligrams a day and often more than one acetaminophen-containing product. The Percocet label caps total daily acetaminophen at 4 grams. A person taking extra Percocet for a growing tolerance is taking extra acetaminophen too, often on top of Tylenol or a cold medicine that also contains it. All of it counts toward the same 4 grams.

Oxycodone vs Percocet: which is stronger?

Neither, milligram for milligram of oxycodone. A 5 mg oxycodone tablet and a Percocet 5/325 deliver the same opioid dose. What Percocet adds is the acetaminophen, and with it a second daily limit.

Is hydrocodone the same as Percocet?

No. Hydrocodone is a different opioid. Percocet is oxycodone and acetaminophen. The hydrocodone tablets people confuse it with are hydrocodone and acetaminophen, sold today mostly as generics. Norco, Lortab, and Vicodin are the brand names people still use for them, though the FDA lists those brand tablets as discontinued. On a pharmacy shelf the two look alike: both pair an opioid with acetaminophen, both are written as two numbers, both are Schedule II.

That last part is recent. Hydrocodone combination products were Schedule III until the DEA moved them to Schedule II effective October 6, 2014, the same tier as oxycodone. Hydrocodone also comes as an extended-release tablet without acetaminophen: Hysingla ER, labeled for once-daily use. If you are trying to identify a specific tablet, our T 257 pill guide explains how imprint codes work on one common hydrocodone 5/325 tablet.

Oxycodone vs hydrocodone: which is stronger?

By the CDC’s table, oxycodone counts as roughly one and a half times hydrocodone, milligram for milligram. Hydrocodone gets a factor of 1.0, oxycodone 1.5. The factors come from the 2022 CDC guideline, with the same warning against using them to convert one prescription into another.

Stronger is the wrong question, though. The dose in the tablet, how many tablets, and the tolerance of the person taking them decide what happens. A small dose of a “stronger” opioid can be less dangerous than a large dose of a “weaker” one.

Percocet vs Norco (or Vicodin)

Both are an opioid plus acetaminophen, and the opioid is the only real difference: oxycodone in Percocet, hydrocodone in Norco, Vicodin, and their generics. By the CDC’s approximate factors, a Percocet 10/325 counts as about 15 morphine milligram equivalents and a hydrocodone 10/325 as about 10. Both carry the same acetaminophen ceiling, and both labels list the same opioid warnings.

MS Contin vs OxyContin

Both are extended-release tablets meant to be swallowed whole and taken on a schedule, not as needed. Both are Schedule II. The difference is the drug: MS Contin is morphine, labeled for every 8 or 12 hours; OxyContin is oxycodone, labeled for every 12 hours. The current MS Contin label lists 15, 30, and 60 mg tablets.

Is oxycodone stronger than morphine?

Milligram for milligram, by mouth, yes. The CDC table gives oxycodone a factor of 1.5 against morphine’s 1.0, so 10 mg of oral oxycodone is treated as roughly 15 mg of oral morphine. Prescribers switching a patient between the two typically start the new drug lower than the arithmetic suggests, for the reasons the CDC gives.

Which one is the most dangerous?

The one that did not come from a pharmacy. The DEA reports that fentanyl is increasingly pressed into pills made to look like legitimate prescription opioids, and that these counterfeits often contain lethal doses of fentanyl with none of the promised drug. Two milligrams of fentanyl can be a deadly dose. In 2025 the DEA seized more than 47 million fentanyl-laced counterfeit pills, and its One Pill Can Kill page tells people never to trust their own eyes to judge whether a pill is real.

A pill bought from a friend, a dealer, or a website is not oxycodone until a lab says it is. Everything in the table above describes pharmacy tablets. None of it describes a pressed pill with the right color and the right stamp.

Mixing with Xanax, Klonopin, or alcohol

The current FDA label for every tablet in the table carries the same boxed warning: opioids taken with benzodiazepines or other central nervous system depressants, including alcohol, may cause profound sedation, slowed breathing, coma, and death. Our Klonopin guide covers the benzodiazepine side. The OxyContin label also warns that accidental ingestion of even one dose, especially by a child, can be fatal, which is reason enough to keep any of these locked away at home.

Does the brand change withdrawal?

Not in kind. Oxycodone, OxyContin, Percocet, and hydrocodone all act on the same opioid receptors, and the labels describe the same dependence. Tolerance and physical dependence can develop during any opioid therapy, and the OxyContin label says addiction can occur in patients appropriately prescribed the drug.

The labels list the same withdrawal symptoms: restlessness, watery eyes, runny nose, yawning, sweating, chills, muscle aches, and wide pupils, then irritability, anxiety, back and joint pain, stomach cramps, insomnia, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea. For short-acting opioids, SAMHSA’s TIP 63 puts early withdrawal at 8 to 24 hours after last use and the whole course at about 7 to 10 days; long-acting opioids such as methadone start later and can run 14 days or more. No label publishes a separate clock for each brand.

Do not stop a prescription on your own

The OxyContin label warns that rapid reduction or abrupt discontinuation of opioid painkillers has resulted in serious withdrawal symptoms, uncontrolled pain, and suicide. If you take any of these on a prescription and want to come off, the taper belongs to the prescriber. If you take more than prescribed, or take pills that were not prescribed to you, that is a different conversation, and it is the one medical detox exists for.

The days after withdrawal are the dangerous ones

When withdrawal ends, much of the tolerance has gone with it. The lofexidine (Lucemyra) label states that people who complete opioid discontinuation are likely to have reduced tolerance and are at increased risk of fatal overdose if they resume. A 2017 BMJ meta-analysis found overdose death rates several times higher out of methadone or buprenorphine treatment than in it, and called the time immediately after leaving treatment a period of particularly increased risk. A dose someone handled last month is not a safe dose next week. Keep naloxone in the house; our naloxone guide for families covers where to get it in New Jersey.

What opioid detox looks like

Medical detox for oxycodone or hydrocodone dependence usually means starting a medication for opioid use disorder, buprenorphine or methadone, or using non-opioid medications for symptoms, with regular monitoring and a plan for what comes next. Buprenorphine has to be started at the right point in withdrawal, or it can make withdrawal suddenly worse; our guide to precipitated withdrawal explains why. Our opioid detox guide walks through the process, and the medication guide compares buprenorphine, methadone, and naltrexone. For the buprenorphine products themselves, see Suboxone vs Subutex vs Sublocade.

In New Jersey

Since 2017, New Jersey has limited an initial opioid prescription for acute pain to a five-day supply at the lowest effective dose of an immediate-release opioid, and prescribers generally must check the state Prescription Monitoring Program before writing it. That is section 11 of P.L.2017, c.28 (N.J.S.A. 24:21-15.2); cancer care, hospice, and palliative care are excluded, and the five-day limit still stands after the law’s 2018 amendment and the Board of Medical Examiners’ current rule. The same law governs coverage of treatment: fully insured New Jersey plans and the State Health Benefits and School Employees’ plans cannot require prior authorization for the first 180 days per plan year of in-network treatment your own physician, psychologist or psychiatrist finds medically necessary, and cannot run concurrent or retrospective medical-necessity review for the first 28 days of an in-network inpatient stay. Self-funded employer plans, Medicare and Medicaid are not covered by that rule, so verify with the plan. NJ FamilyCare covers medically supervised withdrawal; the IME Addictions Access Center at 1-844-276-2777 screens callers, refers them to treatment and authorizes residential detox for most members, and outpatient and hospital detox go through the member’s health plan. Our insurance guides go plan by plan.

ReachNJ, the state’s addiction help line, is at 1-844-732-2465. For an overdose or any immediate danger, call 911. If someone is in crisis or thinking about suicide, call or text 988.

Periscope Behavioral Health, which publishes this site, is opening a medical detox in Hammonton, Atlantic County, expected Summer 2027. Until then, the admissions line of our publisher, Periscope Behavioral Health, at (888) 313-3583, can talk through options in New Jersey and Florida, including facilities Periscope operates. What a plan covers depends on the plan and the facility’s network status. Same-day admission is sometimes possible, never guaranteed.

What the name tells you, and what it does not

The brand on the bottle tells you which opioid is inside, how fast it is released, and whether acetaminophen comes with it. That is worth knowing if you are counting Tylenol, wondering why a tablet must be swallowed whole, or comparing two prescriptions. It does not change the withdrawal symptoms, which the labels describe in the same words for all of them. The risk comes from the dose, the person’s tolerance, what else they have taken, and whether the pill came from a pharmacy at all.