NFLD. MAY RELEASE MEDICAL FILES TO POLICE

Health Minister Says It Is Necessary To Fight Abuse Of Drugs Such As
OxyContin

Newfoundland and Labrador may give law-enforcement agencies access to
suspicious medical information and may toughen its medical act to
defuse what one police officer has called the "nuclear bomb" of the
local drug trade.

Both measures were among the 50 recommendations of a task force report
on the prescription painkiller OxyContin.

Current legislation allows the province to share medical information
with police "when the protection of the public is an issue," Health
Minister Elizabeth Marshall said.

That data would include evidence of "double doctoring," where patients
go to several physicians to get prescriptions.

Ms. Marshall said she had asked Cabinet for the authority to provide
information to police about such things as prescribing patterns. There
will be "stringent criteria" governing the release of medical files,
she added.

"There's a concern with respect to people's right to privacy, and
we're trying to balance that against the public good," she said.

Cabinet will also look at toughening existing laws to grant medical
authorities greater leeway in probing third-party complaints.

Information sharing and collaboration between police and medical
authorities are key, Ms. Marshall said.

The government also said it will implement tamper-resistant
prescription pads to meet another recommendation from the task force.

The province struck the OxyContin task force late last year in the
wake of high-profile court cases and a string of media reports on the
drug.

From 1997 to 2003, there were 17 accidental drug-related deaths in the
province. Seven of those were related to OxyContin or its
pharmaceutical cousins.

Response to the work of the task force was positive. Dr. Andrew Major,
president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association (NLMA),
said proposed changes to the medical act will make it easier to combat
double-doctoring.

Aiding in that effort will be the province-wide pharmacy network
scheduled to go online in 2006.

Tamper-resistant prescription pads are also an excellent interim
measure until the network gets up and running, Dr. Major said.

He also defended doctors' role in prescribing the drug, saying the
"vast majority" of them appropriately dispense OxyContin.

He said the NLMA has started an education program for physicians and
other medical professionals about the painkiller.

Police, meanwhile, lauded the recommendations, calling them "timely
and appropriate."

"We're hoping that some of the issues are of course expedited so that
we can move on with the job," said Inspector Sean Ryan of the Royal
Newfoundland Constabulary.

Insp. Ryan linked the OxyContin problem -- and the drug trade in
general -- to a broader spike in the crime rate.

"The drug problem is a contributing [factor] to many other problems,
such as our property crime, our armed robberies, our muggings -- that
sort of thing," he said. "So with some of the recommendations of the
task force, that's certainly going to assist in a whole bunch of areas."

He said many of the RNC's investigatory avenues are blocked by current
rules on the release of medical files.

"There are government agencies that have information they believe
supports criminal activity, but yet by virtue of the existing
legislation they cannot share that with us," he told reporters.
"[That], in essence -- no pun intended -- handcuffs us from doing a
thorough job."

In June, RNC Constable Jason Sheppard -- a criminal intelligence
officer assigned to monitor OxyContin abuse following the deaths of
two addicts last year -- told a health conference: "OxyContin is a
nuclear bomb compared to other drugs -- I haven't seen anything like
this before."

Const. Sheppard said the problem touched all strata of society.

"I know people here in this city who are doing 10 or 12 (OxyContins) a
day, one oxy-80 an hour," he told the conference.