Editorial: Stop the pain-pill plague
393517 01: The prescription medicine OxyContin is displayed August 21, 2001 at a Walgreens drugstore in Brookline, MA. The powerful painkiller, manufactured to relieve the pain of seriously ill people, is being used by some addicts to achieve a high similar to a heroin rush. Its popularity among abusers of the drug has resulted in a string of pharmacy robberies nationwide. Armed robbers raid the pharmacies for the painkiller which has a street value of $40 for a 40mg pill. (Photo by Darren McCollester/Getty Images) Credit: Getty/Darren McCollester
A doctor said to have prescribed more than 2,500 powerful narcotic pills to Medford drugstore killer David Laffer is under arrest, but not for anything involving Laffer.
Dr. Stan Xuhui Li was arrested Saturday because one of his patients died of an overdose in 2010, allegedly after Li issued him dozens of prescriptions for controlled substances over the previous 15 months. That overdose was the man's third.
There is a growing epidemic of prescription painkiller abuse. There were more overdose deaths on Long Island from oxycodone last year than from heroin.
And while there exists a database to prevent abuses -- by reporting what drugs patients are prescribed and by whom -- few doctors check it. So Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota has said he will impanel a special grand jury to investigate "doctor shopping," the practice of addicts getting multiple physicians to write them prescriptions for drugs, and whether there is criminal conduct in the actions of the doctors writing the prescriptions.
The grand jury makes sense. Doctors who prescribe powerful drugs must do so responsibly.
The state Health Department tracks prescription pill use and has since early 2010, but few doctors use the information, which can lag real time by at least a month.
State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman wants state legislators to allow an improved method, the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing, or I-STOP. The system would update immediately, and doctors and pharmacists could both access it to track drug use.
Schneiderman's approach is right, but still wouldn't work unless those who provide the drugs are required to check the databases. The best people to require that from are pharmacists.
Doctors should be alert too, but the pharmacies already use databases to determine each patient's insurance information.
Combining this computer search with one that tells pharmacists when drug use is getting out of hand is the best, first step in addressing this problem. Stiff penalties for failing to use the database are also a must.
There will always be bad actors: patients, doctors and pharmacists determined to outwit the system. But right now, with patients scoring thousands of pills from dozens of doctors and stores, the system is just witless, and bodies are piling up.
