Prescription Drug Addiction Blog

In its third attempt to pass a prescription drug monitoring law, the state of New Hampshire's legislature failed again, according to a story in The Citizen of Laconia newspaper. The article states that the cost of implementing a program was prohibitive and that it may have been presented in the wrong committee for the language of the bill. Either way, NH is the only state in New England that doesn't have a prescription drug monitoring program law.

These programs are designed to share information between doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement to prevent doctor shopping and other types of prescription drug fraud that are used by people who have an addiction to prescription drugs.

What law makers fail to see is that by implementing a program like this they will actually save the state much more money in the long run through prevention of overdoses, deaths as well as other healthcare and law enforcement costs. The biggest savings of course or the lives, which is difficult to put a dollar figure on, as one source in the paper estimated that there are about 100 overdose deaths per year in New Hampshire.

By being able to catch some of these offenders earlier in the process they can be diverted to drug treatment programs and hopefully have a chance at making it. Experts recommend long-term drug treatment facilities to provide higher rates of success, which is another issue that New Hampshire has to face along with most states in the country.

Prescription drug abuse and addiction continues to grow throughout the country, and there is no immediate end in sight. It affects young people because they often don't view prescription drugs as being as dangerous as street drugs, and older Americans who are given these drugs are becoming addicted simply from the tolerance and abuse potential of the drugs.

States like West Virginia, as reported in Business Week, have introduced legislation to try and combat their growing problem. Prescription opiates are the biggest problem, which include painkillers such as methadone, oxycodone and hydrocodone products. One of the most effective ways to fight "doctor shopping" is an attempt to have a prescription drug monitoring system in place where pharmacists can access a database of information to see how often and how recently people have tried to get prescriptions filled at other places. While it's not a fool-proof method, it certainly throws an extra net on trying to catch problems before they get worse.

Of course, just like with illicit drugs, the question of what to do when people are caught forging prescriptions or buying the drugs off the street is how to handle the individuals. A heavy-handed law enforcement approach doesn't work that often, and it is much better for both those caught in the trap of prescription drug addiction as well as society as a whole to try and give them a chance to attend successful addiction treatment centers.