TRACKING PRESCRIPTION NARCOTICS: HANDS OFF DRUG DATABASE

With the release of Gov. Rick Scott's budget proposal Feb. 7, the
Legislature has much to discuss. Among the issues pending are whether
and how much to cut taxes, reduce state pensions and lower school funding.

What should not be up for debate are the plans for a statewide
database that would enable doctors to monitor the distribution of
powerful -- and potentially dangerous -- prescription drugs.

Yet, as part of his budget package, Scott has proposed a bill that
would eliminate the database, which the Legislature approved in 2009
but which is not yet operational.

Someone needs to sit the new governor down and explain to him why the
database should be created by state government.

Here are just a few points to make:

Establishing the database won't cost a dime of state money. The
database will be funded by private-sector donations and federal
grants, so it won't add to Florida's budget deficit.

Thousands of Floridians -- many of them in their teens and early 20s
- -- are dying every year from prescription-drug-related overdoses.
Hospitals and law-enforcement agencies are overwhelmed, and have
desperately sought the Legislature's help.

Florida's lax rules on prescription drugs, a local specialist noted,
make it "a national embarrassment." The Sunshine State is also known
as the "pill mill" state. Hundreds of storefront pain clinics across
Florida have doled out hundreds of pills at a time to walk-in
customers from throughout the Southeast and as far away as New England.

Florida has gained this notoriety because it is one of only about a
dozen states -- and the largest among them -- that lacks a
prescription-drug-monitoring program. Without the database, Florida
physicians and legitimate pain clinics have no practical way of
tracking how many pills a patient has been prescribed.

Most Important Weapon

Doctors, hospitals, public health agencies and law-enforcement
officials from throughout Florida pleaded with the Legislature in
recent years to take steps to curb the illegal sale and use of
powerful narcotics like OxyContin and Vicodin.

The Legislature and local governments have taken steps in recent years
to better regulate pain clinics. But health providers and
law-enforcement agencies agree that a statewide database is the single
most important weapon for stemming the flood of prescription narcotics.

Professionals Support Database

That view is echoed by professionals in the pain-management
business.

The Florida Society of Pain Management Providers opposes Gov. Scott's
proposal, says the organizer's president, Paul Sloan of Venice. Sloan
said the program is the "single most important" tool for countering
prescription-drug abuse.

Dr. Rafael Miguel, a Sarasota pain medication specialist and professor
at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, urged local
leaders to "direct your lobbyists in Tallahassee to demand that the
single most effective tool we have -- the statewide database -- be put
in place." Miguel told the Sarasota Herald-Tribune's Barbara Peters
Smith that, without the database, "Florida is a national
embarrassment."

Not the kind of image Florida wants to project if, like Rick Scott,
your chief focus is to create jobs, in large part by attracting new
employers to the state.

Scott said Tuesday that the database program "has not been working" --
which is understandable since, because of contractual difficulties,
the database is not up and running.

A spokeswoman for Scott said in response to a media inquiry that the
governor "does not believe this is a function that is best performed
by government."

If the government does not set up a statewide database to track the
prescribing of powerful drugs that are being abused and sold, often
illegally on the black market, who will?

The private sector has not.

If it is not a government function to respond to a health care and
law-enforcement crisis, and to protect the lives of its citizens, then
what is the government's role?

Someone must inform the governor that the need for a state-sponsored
database is well-established, that the debate is over and that he
should not work to undermine a program with such widespread support.