LAW ADDS ACCESS TO DRUG DATABASE

KASPER To Be Used To Spot Trends

The state's prescription-drug database will take on a bigger role in
the fight against drug abuse under a bill that Gov. Ernie Fletcher
signed into law yesterday.

The measure allows the Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic
Reporting System, known as KASPER, to be used to determine geographic
areas where prescription drug abuse might be a problem.

The state agency that operates the database, the Cabinet for Health
and Family Services, will have to issue quarterly reports on the
trends. Those reports could be used by law enforcement or regulators
to look into patterns of possible illicit drug activity.

The system includes 35 million computer entries about doctors who
write prescriptions for potentially addictive medicines and the
patients who receive them. But previous law had been interpreted to
allow KASPER's data to be tapped only in response to a particular complaint.

The new law, which originated as Senate Bill 14, sponsored by Sen.
Dick Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, will also allow multiple police
agencies investigating the same case to share information from the
database, rather than having to file duplicate requests.

And the cabinet will be allowed to enter into agreements with other
states to share prescription drug-monitoring information.

"We've got a bill that's going to strengthen our communications and
data-sharing ability," Roeding said.

He and Attorney General Greg Stumbo cooperated on the bill, which grew
out of a task force that lawmakers created last year to address
growing abuse of prescription pills.

"We're going to whip this," Stumbo, former speaker of the state House
of Representatives, said yesterday at a press conference, where the
governor signed the bill.

He said abuse of the prescription painkiller OxyContin is beginning to
surface in Western Kentucky, and he hopes the new law can help keep
the problem from becoming as big as it became in Eastern Kentucky.