Proponents, critics of drug plan square off
Kemp Hannon has been a member of the State Senate since winning a special election in 1989. Credit: Michael E. Ach
ALBANY -- While opposition from some doctors and pharmacists is brewing, key supporters said Wednesday it's long past time to repair New York's system to track the prescription and dispensation of painkillers such as oxycodone.
"It's past ripe," said Sen. Kemp Hannon (R-Garden City). "It was ripe six months ago and that was well before the tragedy in Suffolk County."
He was referring to the shooting at Haven Drugs in Medford in which David Laffer murdered four people while stealing painkillers on Father's Day last year.
Hannon's remarks came on the day state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman issued a report saying the state's prescription drug abuse crisis has reached "epidemic proportions."
Schneiderman found that prescriptions for oxycodone, an opiate painkiller, have skyrocketed 82 percent across New York from 2007 to 2010. Statewide, the number of prescriptions for all narcotic painkillers has risen about 36 percent, and admissions to hospitals for narcotics abuse have soared, he said.
"It's far and away the fastest growing drug problem in our state and in our country," the attorney general said. "Part of the reason we wrote the report was to shake people into awareness."
Schneiderman is advocating a new Internet-based system for tracking the issuance and dispensation of narcotic painkillers in "real time" to prevent addicts from "doctor shopping" to get multiple prescriptions. It would make participation by doctors and pharmacists mandatory.
"We are not trying to create additional bureaucracy," the Democrat said. "We are trying to deal with a drug problem and a crime problem that is spiraling."
He said the state's current voluntary program fails to track the prescription and dispensation of narcotic painkillers.
Lobby groups for physicians and pharmacists said Wednesday they oppose the attorney general's approach. They said an Internet system would be less secure than the current one and his proposal would be too burdensome.
"We have serious concerns regarding any proposal that imposes significant new administrative burdens on physician offices at a time when they are already drowning in a sea of administrative paperwork," said Morris Auster, counsel for the Medical Society, a doctors' lobby group.
Craig Burridge, head of the Pharmacists Society, says pharmacists want changes to the existing system -- they don't have access currently -- but don't want to start the process over.
"We feel this is an issue endangering pharmacists and their staffs and we want action as soon as possible," Burridge said. "But why reinvent the wheel?"Advocates want change soon.
Jeffrey Reynolds, head of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency, said: "The proposed changes won't solve everything. But it can put a crimp in doctor shopping. It can ratchet down the spigot."
Hannon is convening a "roundtable" to bring the parties together in February to discuss legislation.
