PRESCRIBING VIAGRA FOR SEX OFFENDERS MAY BECOME ILLEGAL

Assembly bill targets sex-enhancing drugs

SACRAMENTO -- A conservative Central Valley lawmaker wants to make it tough
for sex offenders to buy Viagra and other sex-enhancing drugs.

Assemblyman Robert Prenter, R-Hanford, said Friday he will introduce
legislation to outlaw prescriptions of the popular anti-impotency pill to
registered sex offenders in California.

"Obviously, empowering known sex offenders to be able to repeat their crimes
is of great concern," Prenter said. "It would be even more outrageous if it
occurred at taxpayers' expense."

Prenter said he was reacting to a report that a doctor at the Fresno
Veterans Affairs Medical Center prescribed Viagra to a patient whom the
doctor knew was a sex offender.

Under a draft of Prenter's bill, any doctor who prescribes Viagra to someone
they know is a registered sex offender could face up to a year in jail and
be fined up to $20,000. The measure applies to any drug marketed to enhance
sexual performance.

The bill does not make it a crime for a sex offender to possess Viagra, but
"that may be something we would look at in the future," Prenter said.

"There is great concern that some sex offenders stop because they are
impotent and this allows them to be sexually abusive again."

Prenter has written the state Department of Mental Health and the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs asking them to clarify their policy on
prescribing Viagra.

Prenter said he began writing the bill in May, after hearing about the
alleged incident in Fresno. The incident was reported by the Fresno media
this week, but the names of the doctor and patient were not released.

A spokesman for the Fresno VA hospital said the hospital has never allowed
doctors to prescribe the drug on the premises and the pharmacy does not
distribute it. All doctors, however, are free to prescribe any drug they see
fit outside of work.

"We don't know where that story is coming from," hospital spokesman David
Phillips said of news accounts this week.

In the past three months, doctors nationwide have written more than 2
million Viagra prescriptions. Caught off guard by the tremendous demand for
the drug, insurance companies and hospitals have been scrambling to figure
out whether to cover the costs for patients.

A national panel at the VA is evaluating the drug's safety and writing
guidelines covering whether to prescribe the drug to sex offenders. Most VA
hospitals have declined to distribute the drug until the guidelines are
completed.

"We expect the policy within a few months," said Joe Barison, a spokesman at
the VA's regional headquarters in Los Angeles.

In Fresno, some doctors expressed concern about having to ask patients about
their criminal history.

"I think that kind of check-off list in a routine private urologic practice
might, in fact, hamper a patient-doctor relationship," Dr. William Schiff
told the Fresno Bee recently.

California already requires chemical castration for repeat child molesters.

1998 San Francisco Examiner

Checked-by: Melodi Cornett