FIGHTING ADDICTION WITH DATA

Lawmakers Who Authorized A Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Erred In
Refusing To Establish It Statewide. Still, The Governor Should Sign The Bill.

FAR SOUTHWEST Virginia, plagued by deaths and crime blamed on OxyContin
abuse, is in desperate need of new tools to fight the scourge of drug
addiction.

State lawmakers passed a bill Thursday that would provide one in the form
of a database on legal drug purchases. With it, state police could track
who is buying OxyContin and other controlled drugs that are used
legitimately as painkillers, but also are abused to disastrous effect.

Gov. Mark Warner should sign the bill into law.

Still, we fear its effects in the Roanoke Valley, Montgomery County and
other localities just outside the reach of the legislation.

The prescription monitoring program as originally proposed by state Sen.
William Wampler would have established a statewide database. Showing an
abundance of caution, the House amended the bill so that it would create
only a two-year pilot program in the state's Health Planning Region III,
which includes far Southwest.

Lawmakers' lack of boldness may have set the state on the more perilous course.

Supporters of Wamp-

ler's plan pointed out that Kentucky created a similar prescription drug
database - and OxyContin-related crime rose next door, in the coalfields of
Southwest Virginia. Addicts and drug dealers fled to neighboring
communities where their drug-buying patterns would not be tracked.

The lesson is obvious, but lawmakers ignored it. Localities contiguous to
Region III should brace for an influx of prescription drug abusers, and the
increase in crime that inevitably accompanies an increase in addiction.

The Department of Health Professions, charged with establishing the
computer database, should make sure it has built-in capabilities to expand
quickly. Communities are likely to be clamoring to be added.

Opponents of any tracking system bridled at the intrusion on the privacy of
legal users. One expressed fear that the program might discourage doctors
from prescribing needed painkillers.

But people using the drugs as prescribed will raise no warnings. And
doctors should be more confident, not less, that they are doing the right
thing in providing pain relief if they know a computer will flag "doctor
shoppers" who get multiple prescriptions by visiting numerous physicians.

The data should be an invaluable tool in making the right diagnosis between
pain and addiction.