Oklahoma prescription drug monitoring: what’s collected?
My colleague Carrie Coppernoll had an interesting story today on upcoming changes to the state’s prescription drug monitoring database, which is administered by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control.
Lawmakers have expanded the prescription drug monitoring program since it came into service in 2006. It now monitors several types of prescription painkillers, too:
In 2006, the state narcotics bureau pumped up its Prescription Monitoring Program.
Before, doctors only had to report Schedule II controlled substances, such as morphine and OxyContin. Starting July 1 of that year, doctors had to report Schedules II, III, IV and V, which included a variety of drugs, from Valium to Xanax.
The latest expansion compels pharmacists to submit prescription information for certain drugs in real time by Jan. 1, 2012. Currently, they have to submit the information within 24 hours.
Law enforcement officials say the changes will help catch illicit users of prescription drugs and help prevention. Here’s what Darrell Weaver, director of the OBNDD, told Coppernoll:
“Prescription drugs are killing more Oklahomans than any illicit drugs,” Weaver said. “We simply cannot arrest our way out of this.”
Senate Bill 1159, by Republicans Sen. Anthony Sykes and Rep. Randy Terrill, expanded the information collected under the PMP program to include the address and date of birth of patients getting a prescription for certain classes of drugs.
Here’s what the PMP program collects on each prescription, according to Oklahoma law and the administrative rules of OBNDD:
A. Section 2-309C. A. A dispenser of a Schedule II, III, IV or V controlled dangerous substance, except Schedule V substances that contain any detectable quantity of pseudoephedrine, its salts or optical isomers, or salts of optical isomers shall transmit to a central repository designated by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control using the American Society for Automation in Pharmacy’s (ASAP) Telecommunications Format for Controlled Substances version designated in rules by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control, the following information for each dispensation:
1. Recipient’s name;
2. Recipient’s address;
3. Recipient’s date of birth;
4. Recipient’s identification number;
5. National Drug Code number of the substance dispensed;
6. Date of the dispensation;
7. Quantity of the substance dispensed;
8. Prescriber’s United States Drug Enforcement Agency registration number; and
9. Dispenser’s registration number; and
10. Other information as required by administrative rule.
B. The information required by this section shall be transmitted:
1. In a format or other media designated acceptable by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control; and
2. Within twenty-four (24) hours of the time that the substance is dispensed. Beginning January 1, 2012, all information shall be submitted on a real-time log.
–Paul
Written by Paul Monies
Follow @pmonies
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“Time for Law Enforcement to Back Up Its Citizens, Not Turn Its Back”
Last week I read in The Times (Pryor Creek, OK) that Diana Reeves lived in a peaceful neighborhood for 33 years.
Past tense.
In a house down the street, there seemed to be a lot of visitors. At first it was during the day. The visitors rapidly increased to any day and anytime. It evolved into a sort of drive up system. A car would pull over in front of the house; someone would exchange sacks and run back into the house. Then a lookout was added. After a few months of calling the sheriff, she had enough and went to the police station. No results. As any good citizen would do, she said enough and took the additional courageous step of taping the activities as well as recording vehicle license plates. Armed with some great information, she gave it to Sheriff Frank Cantey. Cantey assured her they would like to get these guys. Problem solved, results expected shortly. But over a 14 month period, only one off-duty officer stayed on her street for about 90 minutes. That’s about .00015 of 1% over the 14 month period devoted to stopping this meth house. Since the activity magically stopped during the one-time surveillance then reappeared 20 minutes after the officer left and the neighborhood NEVER had any follow up police work, one must wonder what’s actually going on. Is it deliberate indifference, other priorities (in the #1 area for pseudoephedrine sales in the state?) or something as nefarious as a Sheriff gone bad?
A cheap shot at law enforcement? I don’t think so. This could have been the scenario in any town in Oklahoma. With our top narcotics enforcement agent Darryl Weaver, calling for greater regulations on Oklahoma’s law abiding citizens instead of catching these guys, is it any wonder that bad attitude has made its way to the local level? What a lazy way to solve a problem – ignore it until it gets too big, then punish those that are playing by the rules.
The problem isn’t the medicine; the problem is law enforcement being viewed as lazy, not tenacious and slow to act.
With the police calling for citizen involvement and with Diana Reeves not only answering that call but going beyond what should be expected, and being ignored, I wonder what kind of message law enforcement sitting on its hands sends Oklahoma’s tax paying citizens and how cheerful criminals must be smiling. Let’s hope this period of law enforcement sitting on the sidelines ends soon and that good folks like Diana Reeves can go to bed at night knowing law enforcement has her back as opposed to turning their back on her and the rest of its citizenry.
Prescriptions for cold medicine and “Wandering Weaver” goes to Bourbon Country?
We have another case of the government punishing the people to catch the less than 1% misusing a common product, using flawed data to back up their “logic”.
Now common cold remedies using ephedrine and pseudoephedrine are sold at drug stores everywhere. But those ingredients are used in producing meth too. So to “solve” the meth problem Senator Tom Jensen (R-Kentucky) will force you to go to the doctor to treat your sniffles. Doesn’t make sense.
The problem isn’t the medicine, the problem is how it’s being misused.
Senator Jensen proposes to punish the 99% that are using the medicine correctly. Even our own Darryl Weaver, head of the Bureau of Narcotics in Oklahoma weighed in for Kentucky. In Kentucky. In Kentucky? Wandering Weaver went to Kentucky … to help Oklahoma? How does that work?
Mr. Weaver believes the potency of home made meth is greater than that smuggled in from Mexico. Somehow he believes you shouldn’t be able to get common cold tablets for your kids at the corner drug store. But the law of supply and demand exists in the illegal drug industry too. Prices are decreasing as purity levels are increasing in an effort to attract users. Purity has increased to 90 percent even as the price per gram has dropped to about $89, according to a federal Drug Enforcement Agency database and reported in the study.
But as Senator Jensen proposes to restrict your rights in a misguided effort to stop home-made meth, it ignores the ingenuity of the drug lords. According to Jane Maxwell, senior researcher at The University of Texas, meth purveyors are getting around restrictions on pseudoephedrine by turning to a manufacturing method that uses different chemicals.
“It’s not surprising that meth use is rebounding”, Maxwell said in the journal Addictive Behaviors in December 2011, “that’s the pattern during the decades that meth has been used. It really is a cyclical pattern of use is up, we put in barriers to producing it or to prevent it from being obtained and that takes it down for a little while,” she said. “But then it goes back up again.” The recent down cycle occurred after sale of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine were severely restricted. The up cycle began as makers of the drug in Mexico reverted to another method called P2P for the principal chemicals involved.
Wandering Weaver should stay home and solve our problems here.
So why is Oklahoma punishing it’s law abiding residents in an effort to chase a problem that already has been side stepped by the drug lords?