Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs
LegisBrief - January 2006
Vol. 14, No. 4
PDF Version
Prescription drug abuse comprises almost one-third of drug abuse in the United States, and treatment admission rates have more than doubled in the past 10 years. Identifying abuse from a criminal justice perspective is difficult, since the drugs typically are purchased legally then used for an unintended purpose or distributed to a different person.
State prescription drug monitoring programs (PDMPs), created through the legislature or by agency rule, address this issue by requiring pharmacies to log each prescription they fill. The reports created by the logs are stored in a state electronic database that typically includes the patient’s name, address, type and amount of drug, prescribing physician’s name and other pertinent information. Medical professionals can prevent abusers from obtaining prescriptions from multiple doctors through this kind of monitoring and can administer early intervention tactics.
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