If you’ve lived in our beautiful state very long, then you know that our state slogan is “Live Free or Die” which was adopted in response to the Revolutionary War. For a number of people here, the idea of freedom and complete privacy is still precious and it is that fierce sense of independence that has led to the fact that we and only one other state (Missouri) currently do not have prescription monitoring programs.
Oh, and this just in: New Hampshire has the second highest rate of prescription drug abuse in the nation. It is so high that death by prescription drug overdose takes more lives each year than traffic accidents do. That’s not even mentioning the many emergency room visits due to overdoses of Oxycontin, Percocet and methadone.
Do you think there might be any connection? Do you think that maybe having a prescription monitoring program might help lessen the number of prescription drugs that are available out there?
Tym Rourke, the Director of Substance Use Disorders Grantmaking for the New Hampshire Charitable Foundation does. He says that, These kinds of programs help prevent doctor shopping, help do a better job of tracking what prescription drugs are in the community and who’s getting them so law enforcement can really monitor that. Without it we can become a haven for people who are seeking drugs for their own inappropriate use or to sell them.” He adds that, “Every other state has figured out how to tackle the privacy issue and I think from the public safety standpoint we can’t wait much longer without that kind of tool because it’s costing too much.”
This is a crisis, so President Obama sent the White House “Drug Czar” Gil Kerliowske here in October 2011 to defend the drug monitoring program and try to convince our legislators that this is the way to go. Kerlikowske said that states can create programs that protect individual privacy rights as well. He added, “You don’t want to become a magnet for these patients. We’ve seen places where patients go from state to state. You don’t want to get that kind of reputation.”
No, we certainly don’t. And we don’t want our slogan of “Live free or die” to lead to more deaths of our young people (or older ones for that matter) either.
