A Missed Opportunity To Save Money and Lives
Monday, April 12, 2010 - Toby Henry
CONCORD -- Politicians and law-enforcement officials say they hope to see a revival of a proposed prescription-drug fraud prevention law which they say could heavily curtail drug-related deaths and crimes.
“The lack of any kind of monitoring system … really makes New Hampshire a haven for drug dealers,” said Lt. Mike Gallagher, a Seabrook police officer and member of the Allies in Substance Abuse Prevention community program. “A lot of them ‘doctor shop’ -- they get a couple different prescriptions for something like Percocet from different doctors -- and New Hampshire is the only state in New England without a monitoring program to prevent that from happening.”
Proposed by Rep. Chip Rice earlier this year, House Bill 1636 was intended to reduce patient deaths due to drug overdose by establishing “a secure program” for physicians and pharmacies to monitor all the drugs prescribed to a given patient. In addition to preventing potentially life-threatening drug interactions, the bill could also have given doctors better insight into patients who could be “doctor shopping,” forging prescriptions and using other illegal methods to obtain drugs for resale on the street.
Rice said on Mar. 2 that the bill never made it past the Health and Human Services Committee. On Feb. 11, the committee deemed the bill “inexpedient to legislate,” and it also would have had a price tag of between $2.28 million and $3.57 million.
“It was a pretty straightforward bill, but I think in the end, they were concerned with the cost,” Rice said. To address the money issue, Rice said Rep. Joy Tilton put forward an amendment stating that the program would not begin until federal funding was available, but this hoped-for resolution hit a snag because the bill must officially become a law before the federal money can be applied for.
Committee Chairwoman Rep. Cindy Rosenwald said that she also believed costs had a lot to do with the bill’s failure, adding that privacy was also an issue. Some legislators saw the bill as a “gateway” for delivering non-medical “biometric data,” such as fingerprints, she said.
“There are very thoughtful arguments on both sides,” she said. “There are some who think we absolutely need it, and there are some who think it’s too large a net for too few fish.”
But Gallagher and Rice both said that the bill’s defeat comes at a time when prescription drug deaths throughout the state are reaching a peak. The number of deaths due to prescription drug overdoses now eclipses the number of traffic fatalities, Gallagher said.
“And it’s been that way over the past two to three years,” he added. “Back in 2005, when I was a detective sergeant, we had five prescription drug deaths in a little over 12 months’ time, and that’s what really told me how bad the problem is. A lot of people don’t know how bad it is.”
Gallagher said the apparent lack of public awareness is due to the fact that prescription drugs are legal, a situation which creates the false impression that painkillers and other medication are “safe” to use recreationally. He said people need to realize that prescription drugs are just as dangerous as cocaine and heroin.
“And they become even more dangerous when mixed with alcohol,” he said. “All it takes is a couple extra pills and a little too much alcohol and it is all over.”
Rice said that many legislators are still willing to address the problem, and hope could come in the form of a re-tooling of another proposed law. The bill, HB 1623, would require a form of picture identification to be displayed with any prescription drug purchase, and Rice said he expects that the bill could pass even with the addition of some of the stronger provisions initially contained in HB 1636.
Gallagher agreed that any monitoring laws would be of great benefit in cutting dowUploadn on drug-related crimes, adding that there is little to worry about in the way of privacy loss.
“I know there are some privacy concerns, and some people will be dead-set against the idea of a database, but it’s really not a ‘Big Brother’ program at all,” he said. “It’s mainly for doctors and pharmacies to keep track of any ‘red flags’ that might come up.”
HB 1623 has passed the Health and Human Services Committee and is expected to go before the State Senate during the current legislative session.
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