Gov. Robert Bentley ceremonially signed three bills into law Monday in the Old House Chambers of the State Capitol to decrease the abuse of prescription drugs in Alabama.
The prescription drug monitoring bill revises regulation language for the Board of Medical Examiners allowing them to better police the use of a monitoring program that will name those who have received a controlled substance and the physician who prescribed the drug.
Governor Bentley says the database has been around for years. This law also allows Medicaid to access the database to check the prescription use of people enrolled in Medicaid.
The bill went into effect August 1st.
Also signed was a bill that seeks to more effectively regulate pain management clinics where medication is prescribed in an effort to stop the over prescribing of pills.
This law went unto effect in May.
The third bill signed into law is known as the “doctor shopping bill.”
This law makes it a crime for people to go to different doctors, at the same time, in order to get an abundance of prescription drugs.
If convicted the first time, the crime is punishable by up to a year in jail. If convicted four times in five years, the offender could receive up to ten years in jail.
This law went into effect August 1st.
Gov. Bentley said before signing the bill, “This is something that touches a lot of people in their personal and professional lives and it is something I take very seriously.”
“A lot of work has been put into these bills over the past year,” Rep. April Weaver, R-Briefield, added. ” Prescription drug abuse is on the rise and healthcare providers across the state can confirm that the cases are becoming more frequent.”
In 2012, the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention reported that Alabama has one of the highest rates of prescription painkillers sold per 10,000 people. The governor says that his office is already seeing positive results from these bills being enacted.
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