This week, the West Virginia Senate introduced legislation designed to address the state's problem with prescription drug abuse. On Wednesday, lawmakers introduced five bills, bringing the total number of new bills under consideration to seven.

West Virginia currently has the highest overdose rate of any state in the nation, and lawmakers are making an effort turn the tide of drug abuse in the state and bring this rate down. A December 2008 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association indicated that West Virginia's rate of accidental fatal overdoses was almost twice the national average.

The bills introduced this week focus on curbing "drug diversion" -- the illegal procurement of prescription medications by lying to doctors, buying on the black market or theft.

Democratic senator Ron Stollings, a physician who is leading the charge, commented: "I am out there every day, seeing patients and trying to do good, empathetic, appropriate care, and at the same time not allowing this fraud and abuse to continue."

The new legislation would require, among other things, that prescriptions be written on tamper-proof forms, the penalties be stiffened for using false information to obtain medication, and that all pharmacies in the state give pharmacists access to a controlled substances database.

(Source: www.businessweek.com)

Labels: laws, overdose, prescription-drug-abuse