Missouri took a big step in the battle against opioid and prescription drug abuse when Gov. Mike Parson signed Senate Bill 63 into law Monday, which creates a statewide prescription drug monitoring program.
SB63 establishes the Joint Oversight Task Force of Prescription Drug Monitoring, responsible for collecting and maintaining the prescription and dispensation of prescribed controlled substances to patients within the state.
The newly-signed law will assist health care professionals in better monitoring the dispensation of opioids and other prescribed controlled substances to their patients. Similar statewide programs have been adopted in every other state in the country, as well as Washington, D.C. and Guam, in an effort to address the opioid epidemic occurring across the United States.
Local law enforcement leaders applauded the move.
“The passage of prescription drug monitoring system is long overdue in Missouri,” Butler County Sheriff Mark Dobbs said. “Missouri was one of the last states — if not the last state — to adopt any kind of laws pertaining to prescription drug oversight.”
The new law will make it harder for those who are addicted to prescription medicines and/or opioids to obtain medicines from several doctors — a practice known as “doctor shopping.”
“The beauty of that is that it cuts down on doctor shopping with people who have serious opioid addictions and painkiller addictions to where they can’t just go from one doctor to another getting way more medications than they need,” Dobbs said. “It gives everyone some oversight — doctors and everyone else involved — as to who’s abusing their medications.”
Poplar Bluff Police Chief Danny Whiteley said the new monitoring program also could lower medical costs across the board.
“If we can slow down the doctor shopping and so forth, I think that’s going to help considerably,” Whiteley said. “Plus something that nobody ever thinks about — and very seldom talks about — is the fact of what it costs the taxpayers and/or the patients through the medical facilities to treat this.
“A lot, or probably the majority of overdoses are people that don’t have insurance. And as the old saying goes, ‘When gas gets higher, the trucking company’s going to have a little more on to the bill’ — that’s what insurance companies are doing and that’s what the hospitals are doing to treat the people that have this problem.”
Health professionals also are pleased with the new prescription drug monitoring program.
“We’re super pleased that the bill has passed,” said Amanda Fitzwater, operations director at the Butler County Health Department. “We also want to let the community know that we still have the prescription medicine disposal kits here at the health department if they ever do need to do any kind of disposal of prescription drugs.”
One thing the new monitoring program will not affect is current laws in Poplar Bluff that require people to obtain a prescription for cold medicines like pseudoephedrine.
“(This is) more geared towards prescription drugs, particularly painkillers and opioids, so that people can’t abuse their medications, jump from one doctor to another and get more than they need,” Dobbs said.
One of the leading architects behind SB63 was State Sen. Holly Rehder (R-Sikeston), a fact that Whiteley emphasized, as did Gov. Parson.
“Establishing a statewide prescription drug monitoring program has been a top priority for my administration, and I want to thank Senator Holly Rehder and Representative Travis Smith for working to get this landmark legislation across the finish line,” Parson said in a press release on Monday. “SB63 will help provide necessary information to health care professionals and empower them to make decisions that better serve their patients and assist in fighting the opioid epidemic in Missouri.”
Most importantly, Whiteley believes the new monitoring program will mean fewer deaths from prescription drug and opioid abuse.
“It’s going to be a big help and hopefully save some lives,” Whiteley said. “If you save one life or one kid’s life, the whole thing worth it.”