California Enacts Two Laws Aimed to Reduce Prescription Drug Abuse

Governor Brown signed two bills into law that aim to reduce prescription drug abuse by enhancing the state’s prescription monitoring program (PMP) and by making it easier for the medical board to investigate patient records after a suspicious death. The first law, SB 670, according to the  LA Times, prevents doctors from interfering with investigators by, for example, refusing to turn over records of deceased patients, or by repeatedly postponing interviews. The second law, SB 809, imposes a $6 annual fee on some health care providers in order to fund the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, the state’s PMP. A third bill (SB 62), which would have made it easier to track overdose deaths and to identify patterns of over-prescribing, was vetoed by the governor who cited concerns over funding. The bills were drafted in response to a series of investigative reports published in the Times which “linked drugs prescribed by doctors to nearly half the prescription-involved overdose deaths in Southern California from 2006-2011.”