Prescription drug abuse soars despite state monitoring programs

Stateline: Over the past 10 years, "prescription drug abuse has soared to new levels. A recent White House study found a 400 percent increase in abuse from 1998 to 2008. ... And the problem continues to escalate nationally, despite prescription drug monitoring programs already running in 33 states." Nine more states have approved legislation to start such programs, "but because of budget problems, they can't find the money, according to the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws. Florida, which has a county some label as the 'painkiller capital of the nation,' may provide the most acute example of the challenges states face." Some state legislators "say the next logical step is to share monitoring information across state lines" (Peters, 8/24).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.