New York Times (01/11/12) Kleinfield, N.R.
Oxycodone prescriptions climbed 82 percent in New York from 2007 to 2010, according to a new study issued by state attorney general Eric T. Schneiderman. The report found that nearly 22.5 million prescriptions for all varieties of narcotic painkillers were written in New York in 2010, a 36 percent uptick from 2007. The study recorded a particularly high volume of prescriptions being written on Staten Island and in large areas of Suffolk County, at rates of 1.5 times the state's average. The study is intended to add weight to the argument for an Internet drug-tracking system Schneiderman proposed in 2011. The current system in New York mandates that pharmacists must disclose sales of controlled substances every 45 days at minimum, but prescriptions themselves are not tracked, and pharmacists can only verify the authenticity of a prescription by calling the physician. With the proposed system, pharmacists and doctors would have access to a real-time tracking database. Doctors would have to check a patient's prescription history on the system and report prescriptions of the most hazardous controlled substances when they are written. Pharmacists, meanwhile, would be required to confirm prescriptions of such drugs on the system prior to filling them, as well as report the filled orders. Schneiderman's proposal has been generally endorsed by the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York, though it harbors concerns about pharmacists being hit with fines for knowingly failing to check prescriptions for the most dangerous drugs, while doctors also would face fines for willfully ignoring requirements.

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