Prescription Drug Monitoring: Is It Time To Add This Arrow To The New Hampshire Physician's Quiver?

Originally published in June 2012.

The New Hampshire State Senate on March 21, 2012 passed SB 286, the Controlled Drug Health and Safety Act (the "Act"), which permits the electronic tracking of certain controlled prescription drugs with the potential for abuse. These drugs include painkillers, tranquilizers and stimulants. The bill's primary sponsor was Senator Jeb Bradley. It is now being considered by the House and on May 9, 2012 came out of the Ways and Means Committee with a 19-2 "ought to pass" recommendation.

The statistics regarding prescription drug abuse in New Hampshire are startling, and the impact is far reaching on the on the abuser's family, his or her workplace, and the physician practice treating – and often unknowingly enabling - the abuser. Prescription pain relievers are accessible, available and generally viewed as more benign than street drugs. With the highly addictive qualities of medications like Vicodin and Oxycodone, which are among the most often prescribed, the consequences can be dire.

New Hampshire has the second highest level in the U.S. of young adults age 18-25 who report abusing prescription pain relievers. With 16.78% of New Hampshire residents in this age group reporting such abuse versus 11.94% nationally, red flags are raised. Nationally, there was a 40% increase in employees testing positive for prescription narcotic use between 2005 and 2009. In 2010 Oxycodone became the second most abused drug after alcohol of those entering state funded substance abuse treatment. According to the New Hampshire Medical Examiner's Office, the number of deaths in New Hampshire from Oxycodone overuse has more than tripled since 2000.

The Controlled Drug Health and Safety Act authorizes the New Hampshire Board of Pharmacy to contract for the creation of a secure program to electronically collect controlled drug dispensing data from pharmacies. Licensed prescribers and dispensers would be able to access this data prior to writing a prescription for or dispensing a controlled drug. The information compiled would relate only to the most abused medications including stimulants such as Ritalin and Adderall, pain relievers such as Oxycodone and tranquilizers like Valium and Xanax. Other prescription drugs would not be included.

For practicing physicians, the number of ethical complaints and medical malpractice actions which result from allegations of overprescribing to patients with drug seeking behaviors is growing. Doctors...