The Missouri Senate approved legislation mandating the creation of a prescription drug monitoring program to help curb opioid abuse in the state, according to a report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The legislation would require physicians to check the database before issuing an opioid prescription to a patient. The approach has been linked to successes in states like Kentucky where "physician shopping" by opioid addicts was reduced by 50 percent in three years, according to the report.
Measures to create such a database have been met with substantial opposition and filibuster over the past five Senate sessions. To pass the bill in the Senate, several amendments were made. The House will have to approve the amendments before the bill can be delivered to the desk of Republican Gov. Eric Greitens, who voiced support for such a database in February.
If signed into law, Missouri will no longer be the only state attempting to combat the opioid epidemic without such a database, which medical experts and law enforcement officials have deemed an essential tool in curbing abuse rates, according to the report.
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