Senators Portman, Whitehouse and Representative Rogers Introduce Legislation to Combat Prescription Drug Abuse

Press Release

U.S. Senators Rob Portman (R-Ohio), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and U.S. Representative Hal Rogers (R-KY) today introduced the Interstate Drug Monitoring Efficiency and Data Sharing Act of 2012 (ID MEDS), to fight prescription drug abuse by creating an efficient, cost-effective system for states to share information from prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMP). Forty-eight states have authorized PDMPs to facilitate the exchange of information among doctors, pharmacists and in some instances, authorized law enforcement, but currently there is no national standard for the exchange of such information across state lines.

"With prescription drug abuse reaching epidemic proportions in the U.S, we need to work together to fight this problem, which is plaguing too many families and communities," said Portman. "In Ohio there has been a drastic increase in the distribution of prescription drugs over recent years to the point where overdoses are now the leading cause of accidental death. Our bill would strengthen states' ability to monitor and track prescription drug dispersion, which is a big step forward in the fight to prevent abuse."

Portman also noted that prescription drug monitoring programs, combined with law enforcement efforts to crack down on the problem have been working. For instance, Scioto County, Ohio, which the federal government has designated as a High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA), has seen a 17 percent decrease in accidental overdoses and a 42 percent decrease in drug-related deaths from 2010 to 2011. This is a reversal from a decade-long increase in the level of drug overdoses and deaths.

"The improper use of pain relievers and other prescription drugs poses a serious and growing threat to our communities, particularly to teens who are too often unaware of the dangers of misuse and abuse," said Whitehouse. "Prescription drug overdoses kill more people in Rhode Island every year than car accidents. By standardizing the way states share prescription data, this important legislation would help our health and law enforcement professionals to better identify patterns of distribution and abuse, and ultimately to save lives."

"While my region of Southern and Eastern Kentucky became ground zero for the abuse of prescription drugs a decade ago, it is now wreaking havoc on communities small and large. This epidemic cuts across socioeconomic and gender lines, indiscriminately impacting Hollywood's biggest stars and rugged mountain men. Prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs) are one of the most efficient and cost-effective tools in our arsenal to cut back on this abuse, bridging the gap between legitimate medical need and potential misuse," stated Rogers, Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Congressional Caucus on Prescription Drug Abuse in the U.S. House of Representatives. "Now that 48 states have authorized PDMPs, it is high time we get these systems linked up to eliminate the interstate doctor shopping which has been fueling the pill pipeline around our country. The ID MEDS Act paves the way for secure prescription data exchange so that doctors and pharmacists around the country will be able to make informed decisions about prescribing these powerful drugs, and law enforcement can more easily root out unscrupulous drug dealers. I am proud to join my colleagues in introducing this important legislation."

The ID MEDS Act would ensure the secure and reliable interstate exchange of data from prescription drug monitoring programs by establishing a nationally standardized system to share such information. The creation of the system would result in the following:

Secure, standardized encryption of protected health information and personally identifiable information;
Protection of state technology investment by avoiding costly rework or having to develop an interface with several hubs in order to share with other states; and
Provision of an open-standard formatting methodology for sharing data.

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