FLORIDA URGENTLY NEEDS DRUG DATABASE

Gov. Rick Scott wants to send the message to America that Florida is
open for business. But he's also signaling that Florida is open for
drug addicts. Scott's call to eliminate a still-under-development
prescription drug database is an offense to public safety and ignores
an epidemic claiming seven lives in Florida each day. Fortunately,
Senate President Mike Haridopolos and the rest of the Legislature will
ultimately decide the database's fate.

Thirty-four states already have prescription drug databases, which
allow doctors and pharmacies to check whether their clients have
recently filled a prescription for oxycodone, Vicodin or other highly
addictive pharmaceuticals. Such systems over the past decade have been
shown to thwart "doctor shoppers," individuals who often begin as
legitimate pain patients but discover they can obtain multiple
prescriptions for drugs and then sell the excess on the streets.

Florida's failure, until recently, to crack down on illegal
prescription drug peddling has contributed to the entire country's
problem. As St. Petersburg Times staff writer Meg Laughlin detailed
last week: Officials in Ohio and Kentucky - which have databases -
routinely arrest individuals on drug charges who obtained their supply
in Florida. In eastern Kentucky in 2009, 500 of those arrested on drug
charges had traveled to Florida, the Kentucky State Police told Laughlin.

Growing awareness that Florida has become known for something other
than sunshine helped Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, persuade the
2009 Legislature to authorize the database. He had pushed the issue
for six years. Lawmakers still declined to provide any money,
insisting the project be funded from non-state revenue. Last year,
after bureaucrats scrounged up $1.2 million from private and federal
sources, a vendor launched a bid protest and stalled implementation.
Now Scott wants to scrap the project entirely, citing vague concerns
about patient privacy and cost.

Those issues, as evidenced from other states' experience, are all but
moot. The database will be covered under federal health care privacy
rules - just like insurance records. Law enforcement officers will
have access to the information only if they already have a person
under investigation. The average cost of running the database -
$500,000 - is far less than any single Florida community must
already absorb when addicts go on crime sprees to support their habit
or end up with hospital bills they can't pay.

Luckily, Haridopolos and Attorney General Pam Bondi get that. The
Republicans, in a rare public split with the new governor, made clear
last week they support the database. Haridopolos went so far as to
pledge state revenue to fund it, if needed.

"I think the database is a good idea because people are dying -
literally in the streets, in the back of cars, from these drug
havens," said Haridopolos, R-Merritt Island. He's right. He should
persuade House Speaker Dean Cannon and the rest of the Legislature to
keep this good public policy in place.