California Cracking Down on Prescription Drug Abuse
California Attorney General Edmund Brown announced that the state of California was going to create an online database to track prescription drug history in an effort to curb abuse by drug dealers and people who go to several doctors to get several dangerous prescription drugs.
The prescription drug database will give California pharmacists and physicians a real time glimpse of patients prescription history. This technology will help fight prescription drug abuse in California and reduce a financial burden on medical insurance companies. In addition, it will reduce doctor shopping for those who are addicted to prescription drugs and go to several doctors for the same prescription.
The new database named CURES or Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System is set to launch in 2009 at a cost of 3 ½ million dollars. While California does have the CURES system in place currently, it is not an online database and can take days for pharmacists and physicians to check a patients drug history. The CURES database carries information of over 86 million schedule II,III, and IV prescription drugs such as Morphine, Vicodin, Oxycodone, Methadone, Codeine
A representative of the California State Board of Pharmacy is quoted as saying "The California State Board of Pharmacy has long been a strong supporter of the CURES system. This new system will reduce drug diversion from pharmacies--it is an important enhancement to patient care and law enforcement."
