The young people in our country have many monikers: Generation Y, the Trophy Kids, and the 'Net Generation. There is another name however that is becoming used more and more frequently in the last few years, Generation Rx, for their propensity for raiding parents' medicine cabinets and popping pills such as OxyContin and Vicodin to get high. According to the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, one in five teens has abused a prescription pain medication.
While this is a frightening statistic, abuse of prescription drugs is a problem for citizens of all ages and prescription drugs are being sold on our streets every day. As some of you may already be aware, there is a growing trend of prescription drug overdose deaths in our state, including three in just February and March from Traverse City.
After talking with northern Michigan law enforcement officials about this growing problem, my colleagues and I introduced a package of bills which we hope will address the problem of prescription drug abuse in Michigan. We developed our legislation to eliminate possible avenues for the abuse of legal narcotics. One such avenue is "doctor shopping" - when people "shop" from doctor to doctor for prescriptions of strong narcotics they can then sell illegally or use themselves.
The prescription drug abuse package would:
• Require patient proof of identity when visiting the doctor or pharmacy;
• Upgrade the state's prescription database to a real-time tracking model;
• Allow law enforcement agencies to access the database;
• Require hospitals to report suspected drug-related incidents to law enforcement, as is done with dog bites and suspected domestic and child abuse cases; and
• Increase jail penalties for prescription drug abuses/illegally selling, including stricter probation terms regarding access to narcotic medicine.
Some may feel concern about a prescription drug database and the privacy of our citizens. I share this concern. It is important to balance patient's rights to privacy and the ability of local law enforcement to stop those whose intentions are to commit harm. A prescription database exists in Michigan. This legislation would make reporting happen in real time so that someone could not get a single OxyContin prescription and then fill it numerous times in one day at different pharmacies.
We have got to get these drugs off the streets and protect our children; to do this we must stop those who obtain them fraudulently. I am committed to a solution that protects our basic freedoms and keeps our children safe.
While it is important that patients get the medicine they need, we must have protections in place to keep the drugs out of the wrong hands. Health care professionals, hospitals, and law enforcement must be able to work together with patients to develop a safety net that can monitor the flow of narcotics in Michigan so they are used for the intended purpose of saving lives, not ending them. I will keep you posted on the progress of this legislation in the coming months.
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