PROPOSED STATUTE CONTINUES WAR ON DRUGS

Sulphur, La. -- Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier and
law enforcement have made great strides in stopping the illegal
prescription drug trafficking from Texas to Louisiana. They are
working in conjunction with Texas law enforcement and officials to
stop doctor shopping and illegal drug sales. DeRosier spoke to the
Sulphur Rotary Club Wednesday about working with Texas to solve the
drug problem together.

"Millions of pills were coming into Southwest Louisiana from
Southeast Texas. There were people from all over the parish who, on
occasion, would load up a van of people and go to Texas and go to
three or four pain management clinics and come back with 10,000 pills
at one time. The Texas legislature started meeting about two weeks
ago. It will be finished with its session by mid-May of this year.

"Since they only meet every two years, we don't get the opportunity
to pass good legislation in Texas very often. One thing that did in
fact pass the last session two years ago was a prescription pain
management clinic regulatory act. Prior to that time, anybody could
go to Texas and open up a pain management clinic," said DeRosier.

In 2006, there were 68 deaths in Calcasieu Parish from overdose of
prescription medication. The number dropped to 65 in 2007. It went
down to 32 in 2008. In 2009, it dropped to 25.

"I think that's in large part due to the efforts of all of our law
enforcement agencies in implementing all of the drug laws that we
have and fighting these people coming back in. We hope to bring the
death ratio to zero."

There has been a law against doctor shopping in Louisiana for two
years and it is considered a felony. Unfortunately, doctor shopping
has returned in Texas because of a delay in the legislature.

"The doctor shopping legislation never made it to a vote in Texas two
years ago simply because the legislature didn't do anything but fight
over voter I.D. for the last five days. Several things are going to
happen this year in the Texas legislature. One, we're going to get
doctor shopping. Two, we're going to have a prescription monitoring
program." There is already a prescription monitoring program (PMP) in
place in Louisiana. This keeps a record in Baton Rouge of how many
prescriptions an individual tries to fill at different pharmacies.

"We have a list of every prescription that an individual fills since
the PMP program went into effect two years ago."

Louisiana and Texas officials have been networking to fight the drug
problem together.

"We have a task force that includes the head of the Texas board of
pharmacy, representative from the Attorney General's office, the
governor's office, the Medical Society of Texas, Houston PD
narcotics, everybody on board looking at these issues. We're joining
our prescription monitoring programs by way of a mutual hub."

"Louisiana is not the source of the prescription medication problem.
We are on the demand side of the equation. We're not the supply side."

According to DeRosier, once they passed legislation against
cannabanoids, the perpetrators came up with something else. Now bath
salts, which are synthetic amphetamines, are being manufactured in Louisiana.

"The problem is still significant but we're getting there. We have
made some significant inroads in that arena so now people have come
up with something else."

"Now we have a new statute which will cover, to the best that all the
scientists and chemists that we've talked to, anything you could
possibly spray into something and either snort it or inhale it. We're
going to pass that [statute] this legislative session. Theoretically,
that should put us a couple of steps ahead of the bad guys."