Bill would create list of drug abusers

The database aims to track people who get prescriptions from multiple doctors.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- A bill designed to prevent "doctor shopping" by creating a database to track drug abusers who get prescriptions from multiple physicians has moved to the Senate.
The bill would track the misuse of dangerous prescription drugs through law enforcement, pharmacies and health professionals, said Rep. Tom Raga, a Republican from Mason and the bill's sponsor. The House passed the bill 71-24 last week.
Prescription medicine now ranks second, behind marijuana, among drugs most abused by adults and young people, according to a report released in March by the White House's Office of National Drug Control Policy. It cited a recent study by the Health and Human Services Department.
Twenty states have prescription monitoring programs, the report said.
Since 1995, emergency room visits from prescription drug abuse have risen 163 percent, the report said.
John Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, said he expects to expand the program to 11 more states by next year. About $10 million in federal funds will bankroll the expansion.
Current system
Raga said Ohio uses an outdated system to track potential drug abusers.
Under Ohio's current system, investigators have to fax a form to different pharmacies throughout the state requesting an individual's prescription history. The process can take up to a month.
Even then the list is not complete, said Cmdr. John Burke of the Warren-Clinton Drug Task Force.
"You can't go on a fishing expedition. The information we are going to access is information we have access to now under Ohio law. Only it will allow us to get the information much more efficiently and accurately."
Under the bill, the database would be modeled after a system in Kentucky, which takes about 20 minutes to review a customer's history. Police say Kentucky residents are going to out-of-state pharmacies or doctors because of the system.
Pharmacists were alarmed at the dramatic increase in prescription drug abuse making its way across the border into Ohio and requested assistance in creating a program for Ohio, Raga said.
Only people filling prescriptions that are typically abused, such as OxyContin, would be entered into the database, said Bill Winsley, the executive director of the Ohio Pharmacy Board.
Cost is an issue
Some lawmakers balked at the bill's cost, estimated from about $600,000 to more than $1 million. Pharmacy licensing fees would help pay some of the cost, but an undetermined amount would have to come from the state's strapped general spending fund.
Access to the database would be strictly controlled and the information would be destroyed two years after a drug's sale unless a criminal prosecution was under way, Raga said.
With the database, doctors would be able to differentiate between "legitimate" patients and those trying to take advantage of the system, Winsley said.
"Right now doctors have to use a judgment call and a lot are uncomfortable," Winsley said.