SENATE BUDGET BILL FUNDS DRUG-MONITORING PROGRAM

Kasper System Also Awarded Federal Seed Money

One of Kentucky's critical tools for fighting drug abuse, the KASPER
system that monitors controlled-substance prescriptions, received
financial bouquets from Frankfort and Washington yesterday.

The Senate's version of the state budget approved yesterday included
$1.4 million in new funding for system improvements.

At the same time, the state was awarded $240,000 in federal seed money
to test a new way of tracking prescriptions as patients fill them. If
that proves feasible, it could be a model for an overhaul of the system.

Doctors, pharmacists and law officers use KASPER to prevent or
investigate possible illegal activities. It is currently running at 16
times the rate intended when it started in 1999. The overload means
users often wait four hours for information.

They have sought an upgrade that would not only speed up answers but
also could eventually free personnel to use the system for statistical
studies to help law enforcement better focus drug fighting efforts.

Gov. Paul Patton first proposed expanding KASPER in his doomed budget
last year. As recently as the start of this month, some Senate
Republicans gave an upgrade low survival odds because of the revenue
shortfall.

Passage still isn't assured. The House budget bill included no new
KASPER funding, and both houses must sign off.

The federal grant, which had been expected, will finance a pilot
project in Harlan and Perry counties in which prescriptions would go
into a database electronically from the pharmacy counter. Currently,
data is collected every few weeks and logged in by a contractor. Users
could also get data out instantaneously by computer.

The award, announced by U.S. Rep. Harold Rogers, R-Somerset, will come
out of a $9.5 million fund named after him and created specifically to
encourage states to create or improve monitoring programs.

"The abuse of prescription drugs is by far the worst plague we've ever
faced in southern and Eastern Kentucky," said Rogers. He said if
KASPER data were immediate, "doctor shoppers," who visit physicians
seeking multiple prescriptions, could be caught more quickly.