STATE WOULD KEEP LIST OF CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE USERS UNDER BILL

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - State government would create a database of everyone in
Florida who gets a prescription of certain controlled substances, under a
measure approved by a House subcommittee Wednesday.

The measure, aimed at saving lives and fighting fraud and backed by Gov.
Jeb Bush, passed over the objections of a few who said it could violate
privacy issues.

Supporters say the sometimes deadly abuse of addictive prescription drugs
is fast becoming an epidemic, and they cite a desperate need to slow the
spiraling costs of government health care programs beset by fraud.

Prescription drug abuse now kills more people than murders in Florida, said
bill sponsor Rep. Gayle Harrell, R-Stuart, and more people die overdosing
on legal drugs than heroin.

"This is going to save lives," said Harrell.

Some lawmakers opposed the (CS HB 397) because it may give government
another way to track what people do and that medications can be a very
private matter. Rep. Rene Garcia, R-Hialeah, likened it to Communist
practices in Cuba.

"My parents fled a Communist country because everything was being
centralized," Garcia said. "A centralized database, knowing what they're
taking, what they're not taking, is a little concerning to me."

Harrell said measures would be taken to prevent abuse of the database, and
those law enforcement officials, doctors or others who try to misuse the
information would face penalties.

Some private databases of what drugs people take are already kept by
insurance companies and some government agencies, she noted. And 15 other
states have similar drug tracking programs.

"Medicare is a federal database that contains ... every single diagnosis,
every single procedure, every single thing that has ever happened medically
to every senior," Harrell said. "We are not going on witch hunts or
anything of this sort."

Added Rep. Anne Gannon, D-Delray Beach: "There's a public policy trade-off
here. We have physicians and pharmacists who can't keep track of who's
using these drugs. There's a huge cost to society."

The measure was approved 10-2 in the House Health Appropriations
Subcommittee. It next goes to the full House Appropriations Committee.

The database would only keep track of people who get prescriptions for
certain controlled substances, including narcotics like pain relievers
oxycodone or Percocet, or the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. Children under 16
would not be included in the database.

The database would be kept until 2008, unless extended by lawmakers. The
bill also requires anyone picking up a prescription to show positive
identification, one reason why it's touted as a way for the state to fight
fraud, which is costing Medicaid millions.

"We anticipate the savings alone in Medicaid could pay for this," Harrell said.

The U.S. Department of Justice, which is pushing such databases nationwide,
would also help fund the database startup as would the pharmaceutical
company Purdue Pharma, the Connecticut-based maker of OxyContin that has
pledged $2 million toward the program - an offer that expires in July.

The pledge was made in November 2002 when the state dropped an
investigation into how the company marketed OxyContin.