LEGISLATURE IS LOOKING TO EXPAND KASPER

FRANKFORT - State lawmakers said yesterday they want to expand the Kentucky
All-Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system, known as KASPER, in
an effort to track and fight the state's problems with prescription drug
abusers.

House Majority Floor Leader Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Sen. Dick
Roeding, R-Lakeside Park, presented the final recommendations from the
legislature's Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force to the interim joint
committee on the judiciary.

The committee did not take any final action on the report.

Stumbo said many of the recommendations, including some that would require
new legislation, would be "fine-tuning" of the state's KASPER system.

The KASPER system collects information on controlled substances sold in
Kentucky and makes individual patients' prescription records available to
law enforcement, doctors and pharmacists.

Some of the proposed KASPER system changes would include allowing different
law enforcement agencies -- both in Kentucky and out of state -- to share
KASPER report information, Stumbo said. Currently, law enforcement officers
are not allowed to share that information.

Those who share the records must maintain a record of who else looked at
it, Stumbo said. Quarterly reports also would help spot trends and monitor
areas where prescription drug abuse problems exist, Stumbo said.

Such trends then could be reported to the state's Medical Licensure Board
to determine whether certain doctors are "over-prescribing" medication,
Stumbo said.

The KASPER system has been collecting prescription information since 1999.

Other proposals that would not require new legislation, Roeding said,
include a plan to speed up the reporting of drug sales by pharmacies and
adding additional data fields that would track how the drugs were paid for.