Columbia leaders consider prescription drug monitoring program

The city’s mayor wants to take a look at setting up a system to watch for potential prescription drug abuse.

Mayor Brian Treece asked the city and county’s health department to review the possibility of a prescription drug monitoring program in Columbia, or even Boone County. The program allows connected pharmacies to view a person’s prescription fulfillment history, and catch potential abuse of opioids, like pain killers.

“PDMPs continue to be among the most promising state-level interventions to improve opioid prescribing, inform clinical practice, and protect patients at risk,” the Centers for Disease Control writes on its website about the programs.

Missouri is the only state in the country without such a program. So far, St. Louis County, St. Charles County and the city of St. Louis have all agreed to establish their own PDMPs.

Columbia pharmacist Dr. Bill Morrissey of Kilgore’s Pharmacy said that while the state needs a program, local PDMPs would not be effective. He sometimes sees people drive all the way from Florida to fulfill a pain killer prescription, and does his best to turn away people he feels are doing so in order to later sell the pills. People could merely go one county over to get their prescription, Morrissey said, without a monitoring program.

“Everybody’s heart is in the right place, and I think they’re trying to do the right thing, but the only way I think they’ll accomplish it is to do the entire state of Missouri,” Dr. Morrissey told ABC 17 News.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D – Missouri) stopped at Stephens College in July to talk about the opioid “epidemic.” The CDC reports 2 million people were either addicted or dependent on prescription painkillers in 2014. Sen. McCaskill said her office would provide any federal help a city or county government set up its own program.

Morrissey said he thinks people intentionally seek out Missouri because it doesn’t have one. State lawmakers have proposed legislation to establish one several times, but opponents often cite patient privacy to defeat it.