How foes quickly stymied a Texas bill restricting painkillers
This is a good example if voters/constituents start voicing against some proposed bill/law before it gains traction. This is another good example why DEA chose the time frame it did to reschedule Kratom… no incumbent President running for reelection.. it is after Labor Day when all of Congress is focused on getting reelected and the DEA elected to have an EMERGENCY RULE CHANGE .. to avoid the public comment period. EMERGENCY RULE CHANGE on a herbal substance that has been used for centuries and the poison control center has had 600 phone calls over FIVE YEARS.. and claim there has been a TOTAL OF 30 DEATHS reported WORLD WIDE… about the same number of kids/baby that die from being accidentally left in a closed/hot car – EVERY YEAR IN THE USA. Unlike trying to UNWIND something like the CONTROLLED SUBSTANCE ACT that has been on the books for 46 YEARS and there is a substantial bureaucratic infrastructure in place with tens or hundreds of thousands of jobs depending on the continuation … and .. you are going to get a lot of push back… by all those bureaucrats whose jobs will be put risk.
State Rep. Giovanni Capriglione wanted to do something about pill mills.
The Southlake Republican had heard about phony pain management clinics dispensing opioids to people who didn’t medically need them, knew it cost the state money to deal with the problem and sympathized with people hooked on these drugs. So he decided to tackle the issue through legislation.
In March 2015, several months after the last legislative session had begun, Capriglione filed a bill that would have banned pharmacies from dispensing more than 10 days worth of opioid painkillers in a 60-day period unless a doctor filled out a form granting the patient an exemption. Pill mill doctors would never fill out those forms, Capriglione figured, and that would separate the good physicians from the bad.
“I filed the bill, and it was about 10 minutes before I started getting some push-back,” Capriglione said.
Individual doctors, pharmacists and about a half-dozen pharmaceutical companies quickly contacted him to register their complaints, saying the requirement was just more red tape that would cause them more work, he said. Capriglione said he couldn’t remember who approached him since it was more than 18 months ago.
Instead, he remembers them saying, the state should focus on improving a Texas database designed to identify physicians who overprescribe opioids and patients who doctor-shop to get them.
At the time, responsibility for keeping that database was being moved from Department of Public Safety to the state pharmacy board.
Capriglione, who said he was surprised by the strong response, backed off. He says he wasn’t intimated by the lobbyists, but he hadn’t anticipated the blowback and wasn’t prepared to fight back so late in the session.
“It didn’t affect me at all,” he said. “It’s clear what their intent was.”
So he agreed to let the database changes play out. Capriglione says he plans to check in with the pharmacy board this fall to see what effect, if any, the database has had in curbing the problem.
“If it’s working, fine,” he said. “If it’s not, if I don’t see some actual evidence … then I may consider refiling the bill.”
Records show that Capriglione, first elected in 2012, has received a total of $5,000 in campaign contributions from the Pain Care Forum.
Pain Care Forum in Texas
Top 10 recipients of contributions from members of the Pain Care Forum, which includes Pfizer, Merck and allied companies:
U.S. Rep. Michael Burgess, R-Lewisville: $292,000
U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis: $210,000
U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas: $203,750
U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Dallas: $197,250
U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady, R-The Woodlands: $184,250
U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston: $147,200
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo: $85,900
U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Plano: $84,250
Gov. Greg Abbott, R: $75,500
Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound: $74,500
Politics of Pain: Texas report
- From 2006 to 2015, Texas leaders received $4.4 million in campaign contributions from the Pain Care Forum, a national coalition of advocacy groups and pharmaceutical companies, such as Merck or Pfizer, that meets monthly to discuss opioid-related issues.
- In 2015, Texas had 63 lobbyists representing members of the Pain Care Forum.
- Legislative efforts to battle the opioid abuse problem in Texas met with mixed results in 2015. A bill allowing pharmacists to prescribe the anti-overdose drug Naloxone passed. A bill that gave some legal protection to drug users seeking medical help for an overdose victim was vetoed.
- According to a 2014 interim report by the Texas House Committee on Public Health, the mortality rate for overdoses in Texas between the years 1999 and 2010 increased by 78 percent.
- That same report states that Texas ranks 44th in the nation for drug overdose death rates in the nation and 33rd for highest opioid pain relief prescribing rates.
- Because of reporting issues — death certificates don’t always reveal the drugs involved in overdoses — it is impossible to know exactly how many people in Texas are dying from opioids. In 2013, for example, 622 deaths reported across Texas were blamed on opioids — mostly painkillers, based on death certificate data. But 798 prescription drug-related deaths were recorded by local medical examiners that year in just 17 of the state’s 254 counties, a joint investigation between the American-Statesman and the Houston Chronicle found.
Filed under: General Problems
I think this guy was naive. Having to print out a piece of paper and sign it would not be something that would stop a pill mill. It does put more burden on valid doctors who are drowning under paperwork.
Also, weren’t pill mills pretty much dealt with by 2015?
Great idea, it’s hard to work backward on an issue that’s already been passed.