President Bush signed into law a bill to create electronic monitoring programs to prevent the abuse of prescription drugs in all 50 states.
The new law creates a grant program for states to create databases and enhance existing ones in hopes of ending the practice of "doctor shopping" by drug abusers seeking multiple prescriptions. It would authorize $60 million for the program through fiscal 2010...
A July letter from the American Medical Association in support of the bill called prescription drug abuse "one of the fastest growing public health problems" in the United States. The letter cited a 2002 Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration survey that estimated there were 6.2 million recreational prescription drugs users then.
The bill passed the House by voice vote and the Senate by unanimous consent in July...
I'm sure this will stop Oxycontin junkies, who may have spent the time, effort and energy to shop 20 different doctors, from getting their heroin-class addictive substance. Fancy that, a middle-class and wealthy-person prohibition! |