GOV. BUSH TO PUSH DRUG DATABASE

Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida House Speaker Johnnie Byrd have agreed to
press legislators for a prescription-tracking system that one state
official said could cut drug-related deaths in half.

Bush announced the breakthrough in the wake of an Orlando Sentinel
report focusing on the problems of addiction and overdose deaths in
Florida tied to the painkiller OxyContin. In a written response to the
series in today's Sentinel, Bush said the newspaper "exposed a problem
that is too widespread and deadly to ignore."

Byrd, who controls which bills in the House are voted upon, said
Friday that he plans to support the legislation but thinks a
three-year "sunset provision" or time limit should be attached so that
costs and privacy issues can be evaluated.

"It is a good tool," said the 52-year-old Republican speaker from
Plant City about the prescription-tracking system that would monitor
the drugs most likely to be abused.

Legislators twice failed to approve a prescription-monitoring program
during the past two regular sessions. Purdue Pharma, the Stamford,
Conn.-based manufacturer of OxyContin, pledged $2 million in November
2002 toward software for the program when the state dropped an
investigation into how the company had marketed its popular painkiller.

If legislators do not approve the monitoring system by July, Purdue
would not be held to its promise, though the state's pledge not to sue
the company for any actions up to the date of last year's agreement
would stand.

Purdue Backs Monitoring

Purdue spokesman Jim Heins said Friday that the company endorses
prescription-monitoring systems, provided they are effective and
ensure privacy.

"We are working with the governor's administration and legislative
leaders, as we did last year, to encourage passage of the
legislation," Heins said. The company also has urged the health-care
community to support the idea, he added.

Byrd said rumors that he had tied up last year's bill because he did
not get funding for an Alzheimer's center were not true. He said some
lawmakers and residents had concerns about privacy issues that he
thought should be addressed.

"The bottom line is, I told the governor I think we should give it a
whirl," Byrd said Friday.

Bush's drug director, Jim McDonough, said he thought the prescription-
tracking system would cut drug-related deaths in half. He added that
the estimated $3 million annual cost to run the system would be more
than paid for by savings from Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

The Sentinel's investigation showed that Medicaid payments for
OxyContin alone were more than a combined total of $60 million for
2001 and 2002. State officials estimate that about 10 percent of
Medicare and Medicaid payments are fraudulent, McDonough said.

OxyContin Named In Deaths

In its nine-month investigation, the Sentinel reviewed 500 autopsy
reports and hundreds of police reports involving oxycodone overdoses
in 2001 and 2002. The results showed OxyContin was the drug identified
in about 83 percent of the 247 overdose deaths in which a specific
medication was named. In the remaining 253 oxycodone deaths, the
Sentinel did not determine a brand-name drug.

The Sentinel found 87 people who had a history of back pain, 19 who
were recuperating from surgery and 157 others with health conditions
that included arthritis, AIDS, cancer and car-crash injuries. By
contrast, 38 cases could be identified in which users had no health
issues beyond recreational-drug abuse.

The attorney for Sylvia Cover, an Osceola County widow whose husband
died of an OxyContin overdose in 2000, is calling upon Attorney
General Charlie Crist's office to reopen an investigation into the
drug and its manufacturer.

In an Oct. 14 letter to Crist, Fort Lauderdale attorney Mike Ryan
suggested that the attorney general would want to launch a new
investigation in light of a recent lawsuit filed by a former Purdue
researcher alleging defects in the painkiller.

The researcher, Dr. Marek Zakrzewski, said in a lawsuit filed in
Connecticut that Purdue officials ignored his warnings that OxyContin
tablets dissolved at different rates, which could lead to "overdosing
and potentially lead to addiction."

Zakrzewski, former assistant director at Purdue, filed the lawsuit
after he said he was fired for reporting his concerns to U.S. Food and
Drug Administration officials earlier this year. Purdue said his
allegations were "absolutely without merit" and would be proven
baseless if and when the case went to trial.

Crist's office Friday referred calls to its West Palm Beach office.
Calls there Friday were not returned.

Outpacing Illegal Drugs

Bush's and Byrd's push for a tracking system would enable doctors,
pharmacists, state medical officials and law-enforcement officers to
track overprescribing and abuse. It comes at the same time the state
released its most recent figures of drug-related deaths. Those
figures, made public Thursday, show that prescription drugs during the
first six months of this year continue to outpace illegal drugs when
it comes to overdoses.

Florida medical examiners reported 392 people died from overdoses of
illegal drugs, which included cocaine, heroin, Ecstasy and GHB. In
contrast, 563 people died from prescription drugs that included
painkillers, such as methadone, oxycodone and hydrocodone, and
tranquilizers called benzodiazepines.

Brevard County led the state with 21 deaths caused by oxycodone, the
active ingredient in OxyContin and dozens of other
painkillers.

Statewide, oxycodone deaths rose from 122 during the first six months
of 2002 to 136 for the same time period in 2003. Methadone, which is
often used to wean people from opioids such as OxyContin, rose from
140 in the first half of 2002 to 174 also during the same period this
year.

Charles Levi, chief investigator for the Brevard Medical Examiner's
Office, said the large number of oxycodone deaths in his area was tied
to doctors such as Dr. Sarfraz "Sam" Mirza, who was arrested in July
and charged with trafficking OxyContin.

"During the first half of this year, we were just getting hammered
with prescription-drug deaths," said Levi, who noted
oxycodone-overdose deaths have dropped dramatically since Mirza's arrest.

"We've become a society of pill pushers," Levi said. "I think having
the system would make people be more responsible."