PRESCRIPTION DATABASE BILL OK'D BY TASK FORCE

A database to track prescription drugs would have a price tag of at least
$250,000 for startup and would cost at least that much annually to operate.

A draft of legislation to establish a database to track prescription drugs
was approved Monday at a meeting of the Prescription Drug Abuse Task Force
meeting in Gadsden.

The draft is expected to be presented to the governor and attorney general
for approval and implementation.

Drug addicts who "doctor shop" do not stay in one county. They move from
place to place. That's why it is so important for Alabama to develop a
database to track prescription drugs, an investigator with the Alabama
Board of Medical Examiners said.

Even though money for a database has not been set aside, the task force is
looking at long-range plans, not just short-term, Sen. Larry Means,
D-Attalla, who serves as chairman of the task force, said.

Several deaths in the last couple of years from apparent overdoses of
OxyContin prompted the formation of the task force. OxyContin is a
prescription pain medication that provides pain relief when taken as
prescribed. Those who abuse the drug crush the pill to destroy the
time-release coating.

OxyContin is still being abused, but the problems have slowed down
tremendously, said Brantley Bishop, who investigates prescription drug
abuse for the Etowah County Drug Task Force.

Task force members agreed that until specifics of a database are complete
and funding is available, some other measures can be taken to help reduce
abuse of prescription drugs.

That list also will be submitted to the governor and attorney general.

The list includes:

* Assign a state agency to formulate and implement an education program for
public education awareness of prescription drug abuse.

* Require that pharmacists distribute written warnings to patients when
filling prescriptions for highly abused controlled substances that include
criminal penalties for drug diversion and proper disposal of unneeded
medications.

* Encourage the Peace Officers Standard Training Commission to establish a
training program for local and regional law enforcement teams to
investigate and prosecute abusers and those who divert prescription drugs.

* Establish a prescription drug overdose hotline at the UAB Medical Center
similar to the poison control hotline to facilitate dissemination of
information to the public on prevention, early intervention and treatment
of prescription drug abuse.

* Encourage the state's congressional delegation to develop and pass
legislation requiring manufacturers of highly abused prescription drugs to
incorporate technological safeguards into the products to reduce or
eliminate the misuse of prescription drugs.

* Develop and pass legislation prohibiting health plans and pharmacy
benefit programs from requiring as a condition of payment for prescription
drugs that the patient receive more than a 30-day supply of any controlled
substance.

* Ask the congressional delegation to pass laws that would make it a
criminal offense for any person to obtain a controlled substance by the
Internet.

* Require coroners, medical examiners and hospital emergency rooms to
report all cases of controlled substance drug overdoses and/or deaths
caused by prescription drugs to the Department of Public Health, which
would maintain statistical information on drug abuse.