Help save lives
Improve prescription-tracking law
Decades ago, most Americans were introduced to opioids through heroin. But nowadays—at the height of the opioid epidemic—at least 80 percent of those struggling with addiction are first exposed to the disease through prescription drugs.
Today, we’re surrounded by stories of individuals fighting long battles with addiction that began after being prescribed opioids because of a surgery or an injury. These are drugs legally prescribed by a doctor—not obtained illegally on the streets.
The real problem facing our country is that there are too many pills on our streets. In fact, recent statistics have shown that annually, doctors write enough opioid prescriptions for every adult in America to have a bottle.
This simple yet surprising fact helps us understand why substance-use disorders are on the rise around the country—and why Arkansas is no exception. Today, prescription drug abuse has surpassed the use of illicit drugs, and Arkansas ranks first in the United States in non-medical use of prescription pain relievers.
If we can lower the number of people becoming addicted to prescription pain medications, we can reduce the number of people that migrate to heroin for either economic or availability reasons. We know there are no comprehensive silver bullets to address the problem, but there are a variety of things that can be done to positively change the curve and start to turn the tide.
Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs (PDMP) are a proven method to help combat this problem and reduce addiction. Put simply, it is a database that tracks prescriptions for addictive drugs and helps doctors spot early signs of addiction.
It is especially important because it prevents doctors from prescribing a medication that can be lethal in combination with a medication the patient is already taking. It also prevents people from seeking drugs from more than one medical provider.
The Arkansas Legislature should be commended for taking the first step in 2013 to implement PDMP across the state. That decision is already showing positive results. A 2015 study of the law determined that it was leading doctors to prescribe fewer controlled-substance prescriptions and lower dosages, and causing an increase in patient education on prescription abuse.
The 2013 law was a first step, but it is in dire need of an immediate change. Our law isn’t mandatory, and only encourages a doctor to report or request prescriptions. A mandatory check would give the doctor the opportunity, in the first instance, to decline to issue the prescription, modify the dosage, or counsel with the patient about potential addiction.
This is essential. A 2014 survey of primary-care doctors by the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University showed that prescribers across the country checked their state PDMP less than 25 percent of the time they prescribed an opioid.
But when prescribers are mandated to check, as opposed to voluntarily checking, there was a large increase in the use of databases and a decline in the number of highly addictive drugs prescribed.
In New York, the change has been astonishing. Six months after it was mandated, doctor-shopping fell 76.4 percent in a year, and opioid prescribing dropped by 8.7 percent. Kentucky saw similar results in the years after mandating PDMP. It showed a 6.4 percent reduction in the number of opioid prescriptions and a 30 percent drop in the number of patients prescribed the dangerous combination of an opioid, benzodiazepine and muscle relaxant.
The data speak for themselves. Confronting the prescription side of the opioid addiction is a vital step in reducing the number of people that end up struggling with this disease.
While there are no full-stop solutions to this epidemic, if we change our law to mandate a prescription check, we can have a real impact and truly help save people’s lives.