Every day, law-enforcement departments throughout the region are handling cases involving the illegal sale or abuse of prescription drugs.
Which is why, for the second time in four years, the N.C. Sheriffs' Association wants to expand law-enforcement access to a state database that identifies anyone who has a prescription for narcotics or other controlled substances. The group plans to present its proposal to the General Assembly in January.
It is a major -- and lethal -- issue, the association said yesterday. It's members said that in recent years, more people have died from accidental overdoses than from homicides in their counties.
Some health-care officials and consumer-privacy advocates are against the proposal. They are concerned that law-enforcement officials could use the database "to go on fishing expeditions for suspects," said Fred Eckel, the executive director of the N.C. Association of Pharmacists.
Capt. Craig Carico of the Stokes County Sheriff's Office said that about 50 percent of his office's investigations and 30 percent of the cases that go to court involve prescription drugs.
The market for reselling prescription drugs is lucrative, with an individual pill being sold for several times its retail cost, said Sheriff David Grice of Davidson County.
Federal and state regulations allow health-care officials to release patient information to law-enforcement agencies without prior authorization from the patient, said Freda Springs, a spokeswoman for Forsyth Medical Center.
"The database," Dr. Stephen Kramer said, "allows you to see what pharmacy filled what prescription, who wrote the prescription, and the frequency of the refills.
"It doesn't necessarily separate someone who takes multiple doses prescribed by multiple doctors from the person who goes to four different doctors for the same complaint," said Kramer, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center.
Eddie Caldwell, the general counsel for the sheriffs' association, said that the database "does not include Viagra, birth-control pills and other prescriptions people may not want known about themselves."
Sheriff Sam Page of Rockingham County and the president of the association, said that the goal is to give a limited group of investigators a quicker way to connect the dots on people they suspect may be "doctor- or pharmacy-shopping."
The state began the database in 2007 to help identify people who go from doctor to doctor looking for prescription drugs they may not need, and to keep pharmacists from supplying patients with too many pills.
Law-enforcement officials have to go through the State Bureau of Investigation for database access. Other agencies with access include the N.C. Attorney General's Office, and the N.C. Medical Board. Page said that access is limited because the SBI has its own cases to investigate.
About 30 percent of state residents received at least one prescription for a controlled substance in the first half of this year, according to the N.C. Health and Human Services Department.
The database contains about 53.5 million prescriptions. About 20 percent of the state's doctors and 10 percent of the pharmacies have registered to use it.
Keith Vance, the owner of Lewisville Drug Co., said he is concerned that an unintended consequence of the request is more pharmacists declining to fill prescriptions for painkillers for customers with legitimate needs.
Instead, consumers could have to go specialized pain clinics. There is one such clinic in Forsyth County, and eight that serve the Triad and Northwest North Carolina.
Kramer said that if law enforcement gets more access to the database, "a clinician needs to be there to help them interpret the data."
James Bryant, the nursing director for Wake Forest Baptist's emergency department, said that it is critical that patients with chronic pain have a single physician or team to provide care.
"Patients who doctor-shop, or use multiple pharmacies, risk harm to themselves and others," Bryant said.
The McClatchy-Tribune News Service contributed
to this report.
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