Missouri alone on addiction
By JIM MARSHALL
published in the Columbia Daily Tribue
My son Cody helped people all of his life. He gave Christmas presents to underprivileged children and used his allowance to buy meals for the homeless. He was an outgoing and gentle boy. But as he was helping so many others, we didn’t realize he needed help himself.
Cody’s drug addiction began after high school. He watched his friends go off to college while he stayed home working temporary jobs. He started taking Xanax to fight off his depression and loneliness, and that eventually led to heroin.
Five years ago, Cody overdosed. Doctors put him on life support, but there was nothing they could do. He was just 20.
Doctors write prescriptions for sedatives such as Xanax and opioid painkillers such as OxyContin every day. This makes it shockingly easy for our children to fall victim to addiction. Whether they obtain their drugs with their own prescription or by purchasing them illegally from someone else, there are just too many pills in our communities, and they are ending up in the wrong hands. Recent statistics show that doctors write enough opioid prescriptions each year for every adult in America to have a bottle. These dangerous yet legal drugs must be more closely monitored to protect our loved ones.
One proven way to reduce addiction is with a prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP), basically a database that tracks prescriptions for addictive drugs and helps doctors spot early signs of addiction. We know they save hundreds of lives every year.
And every state has one — except Missouri. We are the only state that has yet to establish the system as a resource for doctors to access.
Our fellow Missourians are dying every day because a few state senators are blocking bills that would create a state PDMP. Even though there is enough support for it to pass, this small group of senators won’t let the bill even come up for a vote. They make all sorts of false assertions. First, they claim that PDMPs will lead to the government making your medical decisions. That’s a lie. PDMPs are just a tool — they give doctors better information so that they can make the safest decision for their patients. When making informed decisions can mean the difference between life and death, why wouldn’t you want that resource to be available?
They also claim that PDMPs violate patients’ privacy and that their medical information could even be hacked.
First, access to this information would be strictly limited. And there’s no evidence of a PDMP ever being hacked. By this logic, we should do away with electronic health care records altogether. I can’t imagine anyone supporting that. PDMPs are just as secure as any other digital health systems, and they utilize technology to doctors’ and patients’ advantages to efficiently keep track of medical records.
Even in death, Cody kept helping people. He donated his organs so that others could live. I try now to honor his memory with my not-for-profit, Cody’s Gift, and by speaking to kids about drug addiction and how we can stop it from ravaging our communities.
It’s a message everyone — including our representatives in Jefferson City — must hear. PDMPs could save so many of our friends and neighbors from losing a child. That’s why I am begging our legislature to create one.
Jim Marshall is a longtime educator and coach in public schools in Mid-Missouri and elsewhere and at the collegiate level. He is a substance abuse prevention educator and speaks at schools and universities around the Midwest. He established a not-for-profit, www.codysgift.org, after the death of his son in 2010.