Laws Without Teeth Won't Save Lives

In 2011, the Georgia Legislature passed a prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP) designed to help stop the abuse of opioid painkillers. This database received a lot of publicity in response to more than 600 deaths the year before from accidental prescription drug overdoses in Georgia. Doctors who treat legitimate patients with chronic pain hoped that the database would help screen out unscrupulous patients who exploit compassion and con their way into prescriptions and complicate care for all.

Drug monitoring databases are designed to prevent “doctor shopping.” They are also intended to quickly identify doctors who are passing out prescription medication illegally. There are now at least 37 states with prescription drug monitoring systems.

As outlined on the DEA website, PDMP's “address prescription drug abuse, addiction and diversion, support access to legitimate medical use of controlled substances, identify and deter or prevent drug abuse and diversion, encourage treatment of persons addicted to prescription drugs, (and) educate individuals about abuse and diversion of and addiction to prescription drugs.” 

This is all good, but the law in Georgia appears to have no teeth. A year later, it has not been implemented nor enforced. Privacy advocates gutted the bill by not funding its implementation. The reality is crooked patients and doctors are not going to be stopped by passing laws—especially when other crooks are influencing passage of the laws without enforcement. Private funds are being used to cover the costs of Florida’s database, where it seems to be working. In November 2011, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia secured a $400,000 grant to implement a prescription drug monitoring program. The same article reported that the database should be available by 2013. They said similar things in 2009. At this rate, nothing will be different by 2020. The point is: the government and law enforcement are not going to resolve the epidemic of accidental deaths from prescription drug overdoses.

It is very gratifying when we get to save a life by getting someone off of oxycodone or similar drugs. I was optimistic that the database (the PDMP) would make a difference in getting people help. For four years, it has been, "Next year." My optimism has waned. Even when implemented, the database is more oriented to catching crooked doctors and drug dealers and not toward getting help for patients. Crooks seeking to break the law, whether doctors, drug dealers or otherwise, always have been and always will be smarter than the people enforcing the law. We have to address the demand side of the problem. The addict, whether he or she is Joe or Jane Blow, Dr. House, Rush Limbaugh, a politician or whomever, is not fully responsible for their actions. The drugs are in charge. Oxycodone or hydrocodone is the master. The drug dependent victim is the slave. Free the slave. Get them to help. Waiting on the government or law enforcement to save people from their own actions isn’t working. Recognize that your loved one hooked on Vicodin may as well be hooked on heroin as far as the medical consequences are concerned. Whatever value judgments you make toward heroin, realize that the same pertains to oxycodone.

My last blog discussed . Next week, I will focus on teaching family members to recognize the physical signs and symptoms of drug abuse. We can save more lives peacefully with this blog than with herds of cops raiding offices like packs of dogs with their guns drawn.

Share this information. Get help for your loved one. The government with its unenforced laws will not save lives. Out-patient treatment for opiate addiction is effective. But the addict needs support and encouragement.

Dr. Thomas  J. Locke III, the medical director at  in Canton, lives in Cascade.