For years our Nation has been battling an opiate epidemic that has affected people from all walks of life, in every state, and taken too many lives. This epidemic started with the legally acquired prescription opiates doctors continue to recommend for their patients after surgeries and for chronic pain. These opiates are highly addictive and also expensive. When people become addicted to these substances and their doctors stop prescribing them they often times start doctor shopping or looking for other doctors that will prescribe them or look for a cheaper opiate, heroin. Most states have implemented techniques that make it more difficult for patients to doctor shop, hold doctors accountable for the drugs they prescribe, and inform patients of the dangers of having these drugs in their houses and using them over long periods of time. They have created registries for authorized medical personnel to see patient’s prescription history and how to notice signs of doctor shopping and addiction in their patients. However, Missouri has yet to implement these monitoring strategies.
Medication Sales in Missouri
Missouri continues to be one of the top ranked states for opiate medication sales in the midwest. Conservative lawmakers in the state are concerned for the privacy of the citizens medical records but the truly concerning fact is the number of people falling into the grasps of addiction because of the lack of information being shared amongst doctors. Republican Robert Schaaf of the Missouri Senate has continuously stood against bills that would help get registries set up. In 2012, he filibustered and defeated a bill that would set up the opioid monitoring system in Missouri. One thing that he said during this caused a lot of controversy, that those who use opioids, “If they overdose and kill themselves, it just removes them from the gene pool.” Schaaf is also a doctor, Chairman of the Board of the Missouri Doctors Mutual Insurance Company (MoDocs), and is a member of the St. Joseph Area Chambers of Commerce; past president of the Buchanan County Medical Society; councilor of the Missouri State Medical Association; and a board member of the Missouri State Medical Foundation. As a doctor and with so many positions on medical boards you would think that he would want to help the patients that are getting addicted to these dangerous prescriptions. However, Missouri is still the only state in the entire Nation to not have these laws in place.
Monitoring
Using these monitoring strategies allows authorized medical personnel to see medical histories including prescriptions. This would allow doctors with new patients to make sure that the patient wasn’t doctor shopping or getting multiple prescriptions from different doctors. This system would also hold the doctors more accountable for all the prescriptions and drugs they gave out. This information would not be given out to just anyone, only authorized medical personnel that patients sought out themselves would have access. While addicts who are already at the doctor shopping point may not appreciate the added difficulty in getting their drugs, this monitoring system acts as a protection for those who in the future will be prescribed these opiates from getting to that point. If these dangerous prescriptions are still being handed out like aspirin, there needs to be more information given to patients and more warnings about storage and safe use. These monitoring programs would also give doctors information to make sure that they are not over-prescribing or prescribing conflicting medications that can also have dire effects.
Understanding the Epidemic
While the people who tend to get addicted to these prescriptions are the ones who received the prescriptions, there are still the family members who have access to the homes and medicine cabinets where most people keep them. Kids, teenagers, adults, and the elderly of all races and social classes are typically prescribed at least one kind of opiate in their life and all can fall victim to addiction. An important part of starting the end of this epidemic is to inform the doctors and patients. More and more people are learning about and beginning to understand how this epidemic started and are becoming more aware of the dangers of using these prescriptions at high doses and for long periods of time. Patients are learning what to ask their doctors and how to proactive in their own health. Doctors are learning that they should give this same information to their patients so that they definitely know the dangers and in some places warning labels with links to informative websites are used on the prescription bottles. There are more and more ways that states are trying to inform everyone and make things safer. Missouri may be the only state without the managing program set up but how much longer can they hold out? Many people are hoping for a new bill to pass through so they can be a part of the Nationwide movement to work towards ending this epidemic.
