A Senate legislative committee has approved two bills intended to help address the state’s opioid problem. One bill sets up a task force to determine what the problem is and what could be done about it and the other sets up tracking for controlled substance prescriptions in the state.
Kemmerer Senator Fred Baldwin says they want to track prescriptions so they know who is getting what and how often.
“If you go to an emergency room on a weekend and you get ten Percocet or ten of any controlled substance, narcotic, or whatever…it’s not reported on the prescription drug monitoring program. And we’ve closed that loophole and eliminated the dispensing of any narcotics mandatory and so those will now be included, the effect is to try to control doctor shopping.”
That’s when someone goes from town to town and doctor to doctor to get additional drugs.
Baldwin says they will focus their efforts in Wyoming with the goal to expand beyond state lines in future years. Both bills head to the full Senate for more debate.