Vets suspect some pet owners abuse animals to get opioids
A Kentucky woman was arrested after she confessed to allegedly cutting her golden retriever with razor blades so she could use the dog’s pain medication.
An Ohio man reportedly taught his dog to cough on cue in order to get a prescription for hydrocodone cough syrup.
Another man had his small dog treated for anxiety by five veterinarians, but Dolly never used her prescribed tranquilizers.
Pet owners who abuse or fake illnesses in their animals to get their hands on prescription narcotics present a growing problem in the fight against opioid abuse. A recent survey of Colorado veterinarians revealed that while dozens had suspicions, few were certain about what to do.
“There’s not a clear path as to what veterinarians should do,” said Lee Newman, the survey’s co-author and founding director for the Center for Health, Work & Environment at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. “If pain medication is what’s needed, then they are going to do what’s best for their patient. What they can’t control is whether the owner of the patient is going to divert those drugs and either take them or sell them.”
The survey asked 189 Colorado veterinarians whether they ever suspected a pet owner of abuse, whether they used the state’s prescription drug monitoring system, whether they knew about employees diverting pain medications and what resources or training they need in this area.
What investigators found was 13 percent of vets were aware of an owner who had faked an illness or injured their animal for drugs and 44 percent knew a pet owner or employee who struggled with opioid addiction.
Neither the Denver Police Department or Denver Animal Protection had any records of people being arrested for animal abuse in this manner.
“Likely, if this came up, we’d ask DPD to take the entire case and charge under the state animal cruelty law since the owner would be ‘knowingly’ inflicting pain on the animal for their own ends which meets the state definition,” said Ann Cecchine-Williams, deputy director for Denver’s Department of Public Health and Environment.
It’s not just patients who are diverting prescription pain bills from veterinary offices. Twelve percent of veterinarians were aware of staff who had diverted opioids.
Unlike doctors who treat humans, veterinarians keep prescription pain killers in their offices and can dispense them as needed.
“There is a need to reexamine and redouble efforts to ensure the highest standards of inventory stocking, tracking and security from the time these medications reach the clinic to the time they are either dispensed or returned to the supplier,” according to a paper Newman co-wrote about his survey.
In Colorado, veterinary offices have access to a database called the prescription drug monitoring program, or PDMP. The database tracks narcotic prescriptions around the state and has been a critical tool in stopping doctor and pharmacy shopping. The Centennial State is one of two in the nation that require veterinarians to have PDMP accounts.
At first vets could only track their patients, but a recent law change allowed them to also check the prescription records of animal owners.
It was a step in the right direction, but Newman said the subject needs more research and veterinarians could use more education.
More than a third of the veterinarians surveyed said they want more training on using the PDMP.