How U.S. States Are Monitoring Prescription Medication

         As the suspense builds for the release of the toxicology results, which will reveal the cause of Michael Jackson’s untimely death, coming as it did on the eve of his comeback tour, speculation is mounting that the pop icon was addicted to a string of prescription medications, mostly sedatives and painkillers, including Diprivan, Oxycontin and Demerol, revelations which are inciting heaps of questions how one person could get hold of so many prescription drugs from multiple doctors without alarm bells sounding off.
        While there isn’t one centralized database at the national level to monitor if patients are obtaining multiple subscriptions of controlled substances at alarming levels, a number of states participate in Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs.(PDMP’s).
        According to Danna Droz from the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, ``there are 40 states with PMP laws on the books; approximately 33 are in operation. The other seven are in the implementation phase.’’
        Droz did mention the federal government hopes to set in motion a more organized, interstate program, possibly beginning next year, which will share data with other states.
        Currently, most states that participate in drug monitoring programs stand independently and usually don’t share data with other states; except, that is, when there is an active investigation ongoing, like there is with the king of pop; in which case most, if not all states share drug information with other states, according to Karmen Hanson, a Senior Policy Specialist in the Health program at the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) in Denver, Colorado.
        The Los Angeles Police Department has reportedly requested the Drug Enforcement Administration help in their investigation, presumably based on the suspicion that the troubled entertainer might have employed illegal drug suppliers in addition to abusing prescription drugs.
        Beginning in FY 2002, Congress appropriated funding to the U.S. Department of Justice to support the Harold Rogers Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (HRPDMP); and in 2005 President George W. Bush signed into law The National All Schedules Prescription Electronic Reporting Act (NASPER)—also known as the "Prescription Electronic Reporting Act", which requires  the Department of Health and Human Services to award grants to States to create prescription drug monitoring systems and improve upon programs already in place. 
        States that have introduced prescription monitoring programs are equipped with sophisticated databases which gives them the ability to examine prescription data more efficiently than states that rely solely on the time-consuming process of reviewing manual pharmacy files.
        FY09 was the first year that funds have been appropriated for NASPER. In President Barack Obama’s proposed 2010 budget, seven million has been targeted for the HRPDMP and two million for NASPER.
        According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, in both 2006 and 2007, about 5.2 million persons aged 12 or older were current nonmedical users of prescription pain relievers. From 2002 to 2007, the rate of young adults aged 18 to 25 using prescription pain relievers increased from 4.1 to 4.6 percent.

Websites to keep in mind:

National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws

National Association of State Controlled Substance Authorities

U.S. Department of Justice (Bureau of Justice Assistance)

National Conference of State Legislatures (Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration

Bill Lucey
[email protected]
 

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