General Assembly 2003

TWO DRUG MEASURES HOLD PROMISE IN ABUSE FIGHT

FRANKFORT - In the mood of the session, this year's General Assembly sent a
message to officials seeking help fighting Kentucky's growing prescription
drug problem:

Here's the bare minimum. For more, wait till next year.

Even that minimum was past due -- the two main measures lawmakers approved
had been expected last year but, for different reasons, they never became
realities. One died with the 2002 budget; the other was flawed and had to
be rewritten this year.

By the final gavel Tuesday night, legislators had beefed up one tool
critical to investigating prescription drug abuse and sharpened another
that could keep doctors with criminal pasts out of the state.

And, if a last-minute maneuver by House Majority leader Greg Stumbo,
D-Prestonsburg, pans out, the talk about next year could yet become more
than rhetoric.

. The final budget bill contained $1.47 million to speed up the state's
widely praised KASPER system, which records names of patients who fill and
doctors who write prescriptions for drugs with high abuse potential.

As illicit pill use has soared, investigators and doctors are working the
database 16 times harder than expected when it was created in 1999. Many
now wait four hours for information.

. A second bill allows the Kentucky Board of Medical Licensure to
fingerprint doctors seeking licenses so the Federal Bureau of Investigation
can perform criminal background checks on them.

The board now asks medical license applicants to disclose arrests and
convictions, and it checks other sources. But some candidates have hidden
their pasts, only to be charged later with engaging in criminal or
unethical activities in the state.

. Late Tuesday night, House Majority Leader Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg,
negotiated the Senate's release of a third measure that could generate a
fresh package of drug-fighting bills for the 2004 General Assembly.

A Senate committee at the last minute reported out a House-approved
resolution creating a new 19-person task force. The Senate attached it to
another bill it was approving, but that became trapped in the House as the
formal session ended.

Stumbo, who sponsored the resolution, will seek passage March 24, one of
the last two days normally reserved to deal with vetoed bills.

Officials involved in curbing prescription pill abuse welcomed what they
got -- especially funding of more computer capacity and related work on the
KASPER system.

"Now we can go forward with the plan that was our hope 12 months ago," said
Dr. Rice Leach, state commissioner for public health. "Getting a good idea
funded in Kentucky in just one year ain't bad," he added. His department
controls and operates the system.

The KASPER improvements first appeared in the 2002 spending plan Gov. Paul
Patton proposed, but lawmakers never passed a budget that year.

At the start of this session, in the face of a severe revenue shortfall,
its chances looked bleak. But budget negotiators chose to fund it with
coal-severance taxes.

The money will buy more computing power, so that law officers and others
who rely on the more than 32 million prescriptions on file can get replies
electronically and almost immediately. Currently, state employees perform
searches and transmit replies on paper.

Design and development could be completed in August, followed by a
shakedown early next year and finally full use, said Gil Lawson, a Health
Cabinet spokesman.

Dr. Danny Clark, a Somerset physician and president of the medical board,
said doctors badly need faster response time.

More than 80 percent of KASPER users are physicians checking to make sure
their patients aren't getting several similar prescriptions from several
doctors.

"I use it on almost every patient that comes in for pain treatment," Clark
said.

Though it wasn't in doubt, the bill extending fingerprinting authority to
the medical board will be "useful" in fighting illicit pill trafficking,
Clark said.

The 2002 General Assembly voted to give the board power to seek criminal
background checks, but the wording of the law that passed failed to meet
FBI requirements.

The medical board will decide in coming weeks how to use its new authority,
Clark said. It probably won't fingerprint all 1,100 or so new applicants
each year because the number of doctors able to hide a criminal past is
small, he said.

Kentucky becomes the 13th state with power to make such background checks.
The $24 cost of a check will be charged to the applicant.

"This session was a good first step. It lays the groundwork for sweeping
legislation next time," said House leader Stumbo.

Stumbo said his proposed task force would focus on making KASPER more
efficient and finding ways to use it to spot trends and patterns of abuse.

So far, the data is tightly guarded, and used only to react to complaints
and investigations. It is unclear how far officials could go in using it to
find suspicious activities.

The panel would start work immediately if the resolution passes, and would
have to report its findings and then disband Oct. 1.

The resolution, which was passed in the House 94-0, describes pill abuse as
"an epidemic disease and the fastest growing crime trend in the commonwealth."

Stumbo is running for the Democratic nomination for attorney general in the
May primary, in part on a drug-fighting platform.

His resolution appeared doomed in the Republican-controlled Senate until he
and Senate leaders agreed on a rescue.

"We don't need another study," said Senate judiciary committee chairman
Robert Stivers, R-Manchester, just a day before it unexpectedly emerged. He
noted that a task force formed in 2001 to address abuse of the painkiller
OxyContin still exists.