BILL WOULD ALLOW STATE POLICE TO SEE PRESCRIPTION DATA

FRANKFORT -- Kentucky State Police could review confidential prescription
records and identify people who buy OxyContin, under a bill endorsed
yesterday by Gov. Paul Patton.

Patton and his OxyContin Task Force announced their strategy to fight the
abuse of OxyContin, a powerful and addictive painkiller. Local and state
police have charged hundreds of people with crimes tied to OxyContin,
including theft and illegal sale and possession. Many of those arrests came
in Eastern Kentucky.

Medical examiners recently linked oxycodone -- the ingredient in OxyContin
- -- to 69 deaths in Kentucky over 17 months.

The task force wants the state to monitor people who buy OxyContin, which
is available only through prescription, to identify those who buy unusually
large quantities.

House Bill 371 would require pharmacists to ask customers for photo
identification before they sell OxyContin or any other legally restricted
narcotic. Each customer without identification would leave a signature and
a thumb print.

Also, the bill would give state police access to KASPER, a statewide
computer database for doctors and pharmacists that tracks the sale of
restricted narcotics. KASPER would identify an addict who bought OxyContin
at several pharmacies, accumulating a stockpile, said Rep. Robin Webb,
D-Grayson, the bill's sponsor.

Police officers wouldn't need warrants before they reviewed confidential
prescription records, said Lt. Col. Joe Williams, commander of the state
police drug control unit. But officers wouldn't use KASPER unless a
criminal investigation was active, he said.

Police have filed 1,145 charges in Kentucky related to OxyContin, starting
with a multi-county raid Feb. 6, 2001, dubbed "OxyFest."

There were 156,560 prescriptions filed for OxyContin in 2000, yielding 9.4
million tablets, according to KASPER. Those figures had dropped by more
than half as of last May.

Webb, a lawyer in Eastern Kentucky, said some addicts are switching to
"club drugs" such as Ecstasy and methamphetamines because of the ongoing
crackdown.

"Some of the dealers are getting more cautious," Webb said. "Some doctors
have been arrested. But it's still the drug du jour. The addiction aspect
is still in place."

Patton also said he will find $1.4 million to upgrade KASPER so it
accurately and quickly reflects the 750,000 prescriptions for restricted
narcotics filled monthly in Kentucky. There's currently a delay of up to
six weeks before a prescription is noted by KASPER, which would limit its
effectiveness, Patton said.