Pubdate: Wed, 09 Feb 2005 Source: Lexington Herald-Leader (KY) Copyright: 2005 Lexington Herald-Leader Contact: http://www.kentucky.com/mld/heraldleader/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/240 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/oxycontin.htm (Oxycontin/Oxycodone) PLUG ANOTHER DRUG HOLE Cut Online Connection, But Reducing Demand Is Key A few years back, it seemed like the Internet would deliver high-end jobs to the most remote hollows of Kentucky. That hasn't materialized, but the Internet is now helping deliver something else to remote rural areas: drugs. Since law enforcement officials cracked down on Kentucky doctors overprescribing painkillers, the business has moved to cyberspace. Delivery trucks are criss-crossing Eastern Kentucky, delivering meds prescribed after a brief, but expensive, long-distance telephone consultation with a doctor. Attorney General Greg Stumbo is supporting a bill in this General Assembly session to address this latest source of prescription drug abuse. Under the proposed legislation, Internet pharmacies would have to report prescriptions to KASPER, the system that tracks prescription drugs in Kentucky. The proposal also would require a person to show proof of a face-to-face meeting with a doctor within six months before a drug can be delivered. No one argues anymore about whether drug abuse is a broad and deep problem in Kentucky. We all know it is. We congratulate Stumbo and the legislative sponsors of this measure for trying to respond quickly and effectively to this new avenue for supply. Law enforcement will always be a critical part of any drug control effort, but ultimately, the solution is more complex. It's a simple economic fact that demand will create supply. If people want pain killers and are willing to kill or steal for them, someone will step up to sell them. Sylvia Lovely, who has served as interim director of the state's Office of Drug Control Policy, laid out the picture in an interview earlier this year with the Herald-Leader. "What we need to do," she said, "is also focus on treating them and, more importantly, preventing the stuff from happening in the beginning." But the solution goes beyond that, Lovely said. "We've got to be working on economic opportunity for people and community life. You've got to find people opportunity in these communities or they will turn to other things." - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom