State plan tackles medication misuse
Utah No. 1 in nonmedical use of prescription drugs
On Tuesday, health and other officials unveiled a plan to educate patients and physicians, beef up investigation and curb the number of deaths, bolstered by funding from the Legislature's 2007 "Pain Medication Management and Education Bill."
Utah Department of Health executive director Dr. David Sundwall said he believes the resulting effort will "enable us to save hundreds and hundreds of lives in Utah. That's not an overstatement."
The most common legal drugs involved in the deaths were narcotic pain relievers, including methadone, morphine, oxycodone, hydrocodone and fentanyl. Those who died averaged 42 years of age and were divided about evenly between male and female in urban and rural communities statewide. State Medical Examiner Dr. Todd Grey said most of the deaths involved more than one drug.
And 2007 "is on track for being worse," Grey said. Almost one-fourth of his office's workload involves drug deaths.
Now clean, "I know every day I've got to do hours and hours of work to stay sober. It's not comfortable work," he said.
"I didn't grow up thinking I want to be drug-addicted," said Mecham, who was injured at work and ended up addicted first to hydrocodone and then to oxycodone. Sober since June 2004, he said he's still dealing with broken relationships and now has a criminal record. The chronic pain he still suffers is nothing compared to the pain his addictions brought him, he said.
The bill, sponsored by Rep. Bradley Daw, R-Orem, appropriated $150,000, which was matched by funding from the Utah Labor Commission. Health officials also hope to secure other funds for the effort, said state epidemiologist Dr. Robert Rolfs.
The bill-prompted plan has several components:
• The state's Controlled-Substance Database records will be linked to those of the medical examiner and death certificates to boost investigations into causes and risk factors. That database is also available to physicians and pharmacies, but is underused to see whether a patient might be doctor-shopping (getting prescriptions from multiple doctors). Dr. Alan Colledge of the Utah Labor Commission said it can also help spot doctors who are "outlyers" writing too many narcotic prescriptions.
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I am a chronic pain sufferer with rhuematoid arthritis and live...
Kristi Hall | Sept. 6, 2007 at 6:30 p.m.
