Local legislators, law enforcement, medical providers and concerned citizens of Big Horn County and throughout Wyoming are invited to attend a forum being put on by the Prescription Drug Awareness Committee next week. The goals of the program are to educate and bring to light the seriousness of prescription drug abuse while allowing discussion of some solutions to the problem.

The meeting will be held Tuesday, Dec. 15, at noon at the Lovell Community Center. Big Horn Basin legislators Rep. Elaine Harvey (R-Lovell), Sen. Ray Peterson (R-Cowley) and Sen. Hank Coe (R-Cody) are planning to come to the meeting, according to PDAC member Ken Ferbrache. The group is working to invite other legislators and people from a variety of disciplines.

Members of the public are also invited to attend Tuesday’s meeting. Others attending will be local law enforcement, medical providers, representatives of the State Board of Pharmacy, the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation and students. Law enforcement and medical providers from Park County and Greybull were also invited. The program will be recorded and played regularly following the meeting on TCT West.

The group will also explain to legislators their desire for a policy change that would allow better access to the cause of death and other factors that could have contributed to a person’s death. The group wants to assemble the data of deaths in Wyoming to paint an accurate picture of how many deaths involve prescription drugs.
The group will also promote the progress made, such as the Take Back program, which has been used by many residents to get rid of their prescription pills at a secure location since the countywide program began last year.

Ferbrache said one of the points he would like to make is the importance of increased funding and implementation of the real-time prescription reporting system. The real-time system would allow doctors to access a database of prescriptions filled by patients with little lag time, helping to identify patients who travel from town to town to fill multiple prescriptions (also known as doctor shopping).

Through a pilot program funded by the 2009 Wyoming Legislature, the board of pharmacy currently makes the prescription registry available to medical providers Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Harvey has expressed concerns that it will be difficult to pass a bill because of the tight state budget, which will likely be hit with many cuts before it is passed. She said it would add to the challenge to pass a bill because February’s session is a budget session, so the bill would require a 2/3 vote in its house of origin to be heard on the floor. However, Harvey said she would be happy to sponsor or co-sponsor bill if those at the forum are able to formulate some ideas for policy change. Following discussions at the legislative forum, it might be easier to define whether a bill would likely do better being introduced in the House or Senate, Harvey said.

Lewis said he hopes the forum will work toward convincing the Wyoming Legislature that prescription abuse is a statewide issue, and a severe problem. He said he hopes for policy change, but said some continued funding would be required to really affect the problem.

Other topics for discussion Tuesday will include the need for more staff to increase compliance checks by the board of pharmacy, requiring photo identification at hospitals, coordinating prescription registries with other states and the need for more mental health services, all issues the PDAC has identified by discussing their experiences while working on the ground with prescription drug abusers.

Though the group is working hard to stay on top of the situation, prescription abuse continues to become more prevalent in Lovell, according to Chief Nick Lewis. The problem has been identified in Big Horn County, but there are probably many other places around the state where the misuse of the drugs is just as prevalent, but going largely un-noticed.

“I’m not really sure that we’ve convinced the legislative branch that this is an issue,” Lewis said. “We might have convinced a few legislators, but outside of the Big Horn Basin, we’ve convinced very few.”