Speakers included Dr. Robert Friedman from Gosnold Cape Cod, Janis McGrory, who lost her daughter last year from a drug overdose, Linda Decker, an instructor in administering Narcan, an overdose antidote, and Rachel Murphy, Lisa's daughter, who shared how her sister's addiction affected Rachel's teenage years.
I had the honor to deliver a message of a way forward, my most important objective for the next session of the legislature:
2012 Candlelight Vigil - A Way Forward
I thank everyone who came out this evening to participate
in this vigil.
To remember a loved one who lives with or who has died with
an addiction.
To keep the scourge of drug addiction not only on the
radar, but front and center in the minds of everyone in our community.
To educate others so that they may recognize symptoms of
drug addiction early and seek help for their loved ones.
To call for more resources to be spent on prevention and
treatment of addicted individuals.
To provide hope for those who have given up.
At the risk of interrupting the solemness of this vigil, I
must take advantage of our collective attention on the issue at hand to frame
the problem we're facing and list some of the measures we're taking to improve
our chances in this fight against drug addiction.
This past February, the Drug
Enforcement Agency raided two Florida CVS pharmacies for illegal distribution
of opiate drugs. Mark Trouville, special agent in charge of the DEA's Miami
bureau, said at a press conference, that last year the two pharmacies, located
only 5.5 miles apart in Sanford, Florida, ordered 3 million doses of the
painkiller oxycodone. That compares to an national average of 69,000 doses per
year per pharmacy.
Trouville said the pharmacies
either knew, or should have known, that a large number of the prescriptions
filled were not issued for a legitimate medical purpose. Red flags the
pharmacies should have recognized included misspelled drug names, irregular
dosing instructions, and phony telephone numbers on prescriptions.
In some instances, four or
five people dropped off identical prescriptions from the same doctor at the
same time, paid for by one person.*
The distributor of these oxycodone pills, Cardinal Health
Incorporated, had its license suspended by the DEA a day before the pharmacy
raids. Cardinal immediately obtained an injunction from a judge, reversing the
license suspension and allowing their facility in Lakeville, Florida to resume
shipments.
CVS Caremark Corporation said in a press release that it
was "disappointed" in the DEA's action.
Disappointed?
Disappointed?
What else can a manager of the Cardinal Health distribution
facility or one of these CVS pharmacies be thinking is going on, besides the
obvious truth?
Two months later, the DEA
searched six Walgreen's pharmacies and a distribution center, all in Florida,
looking for evidence of more illegal distribution of opiate drugs. One of the
Walgreen's stores had sold 80,000 oxycodone tablets in 2009, but in 2011 sold
1.7 million pills. Another of its pharmacy's sales jumped from 96,000 to 2.1
million.**
We know what's going on here.
The DEA knows what's going on here.
CVS and Walgreens know what's going on here.
The pharmaceutical companies know what's going on here.
These millions of pills are heading right up Interstate 95
from Florida on their way to every city on the Atlantic seaboard and into New
England. Onto Cape Cod. Onto Main Street in Hyannis and every other Main Street
in the fifteen towns of Barnstable County.
Some prescribers of pain medications are only now waking up
to the fact that thousands of addicted persons here on Cape Cod got their start
in a safe and professional health care services office.
A physician who didn't consider that too large a
prescription of a highly addictive opioid drug could be the difference between
adequate pain control and the beginning of an addiction.
An oral surgeon who failed to emphasis the danger of
addiction to a teenager's parent after the removal of a wisdom tooth.
The average person assumes the safety of prescription
drugs.
This is the backdrop that we worked with in developing
Senate bill 2125, the prescription drug abuse bill that passed and was signed
into law by the governor in August.
As the DEA continues to crack down on the Florida pill
mills, there is a surge of people attempting to skip around the Interstate 95
pipeline by bringing forged and fraudulent prescriptions directly to
Massachusetts pharmacies. Senate 2125 prohibits the filling of prescriptions
for opiate drugs coming from outside the contiguous states to Massachusetts and
the state of Maine.
Senate 2125 also requires the use of tamper resistant
prescription pads, which are already in use for all Medicare and Medicaid
patients.
For prescribers of opiate drugs, there is the requirement
that they register in the Prescription Monitoring Program over the next three
years and begin to consult the PMP database when accepting a new patient in
order to curtail doctor shopping.
Also for prescribers, patients, court personnel, and
others, there is a strong educational component aimed at raising the awareness
of these drugs and their propensity to trigger addictive behaviors.
Between this bill and the repeat violent criminal
legislation, also known as Melissa's Bill, we recognized the value of adding
Good Samaritan protections for people reporting overdoses and of making Narcan,
an overdosing antidote, more available.
Where do we go from here?
We must break the current paradigm and start focusing our
efforts and resources on prevention and treatment. Massachusetts should take a
look at "tough on crime" Texas to see what this shift in focus can
do.
In 2005, Texas began reforming
drug sentencing and shifting money to drug rehabilitation and prevention
programs, which has saved the state billions of dollars and reduced crime,
according to the Washington Post. Such reforms have earned the praise of
unlikely bedfellows: NAACP President Ben Jealous and conservative activist
Grover Norquist. The NAACP argues that sending people to jail for nonviolent
drug offenses turns young people into hardened criminals and disproportionately
affects black people, while Norquist argues that states waste taxpayer money
locking up people who could be rehabilitated more cost-effectively.**
In August of last year, the
Texas governor announced that the state would, for the first time in its
history, close down a prison due to a reduced prison population and the lowest
crime rate since 1973.
Currently, out of all the money spent in Massachusetts
dealing with drug and alcohol abuse--for local, county and state police, for
the court system, for the prison system, for the parole system--only 2 cents
out of a dollar is spent on prevention and treatment.
Two cents.
Every dollar spent on effective treatment programs saves
five to seven dollars spent on law enforcement, courts and prisons, according
to a number of studies conducted over the last twenty years.
This is the direction we need to go.
And this is my message to you tonight.
Help me and all of your legislators convince leadership in
both parties that the priority must shift from punishment to treatment for
nonviolent drug offenders.
We can turn the corner on drug and alcohol addiction with
the efforts of everyone here and the thousands like you across the
commonwealth.
Thank you.
* DEA raids 2 CVS pharmacies
in drug abuse probe - Reuters, February 6, 2012
** DEA Continues Corporate
Responsibility Drive - Jesse C. Vivian, RPh, JD,, May 22, 2012
*** DEA raids 2 CVS pharmacies
in drug abuse probe - Yahoo News - Liz Goodwin, August 3, 2011
Thank you, thank you, thank you! This issue has needed leadership for a very long time, and I applaud your commitment to take action. There is hardly a family anywhere- no matter what their life circumstances- that has not been affected by this issue. Let me know how I can help!
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