A new Senate bill could help decrease prescription drug abuse in Missouri, as all prescriptions may be electronically monitored, according to the Prescription Drug Monitoring Act.

Sen. Kevin Engler, R-District 3, is sponsoring the bill in a direct effort to combat drug abuse by setting up a method that would allow Missouri to track any prescription filled in the state, Engler said.

“Prescription drug abuse is one of the fastest growing types of drug abuse in the country,” Engler said. “From 2005 to 2009, Missouri saw hundreds of deaths relating to pharmaceutical abuse.”

Prescription drug abuse is a problem in Missouri, but also in the United States, Engler said. It is a cause for thousands of deaths a year.

According to the Drug Enforcement Agency, a pharmaceutical related death occurs every 19 seconds in America.

The program, if implemented, would allow the Department of Health and Human Services to develop a program that would track the dispensing of any prescription drug and tie that sale to an individual, according to the bill.

As of today, Missouri and New Hampshire are the only states in America that do not have a prescription drug-monitoring program. Each of the other 48 states has some system that tracks the sale of prescriptions, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

Because of this, individuals will cross state lines and come into Missouri from Kansas, Arkansas, Illinois and Iowa to buy drugs they can’t obtain in their respective states, Engler said.

Painkiller use in the U.S. has risen by 600 percent in the last eight years, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. In Missouri alone, it has increased by 1,112 percent.

The program could be seen as another government intrusion into private citizens’ lives, Sen. Rob Schaaf said, R-District 34.

“This week, I stood firm and let my opposition be heard loud and clear regarding a bill that would establish a prescription drug monitoring program,” Schaaf said in a news release. “The act would establish and maintain a database to monitor the prescribing and dispensing of substances often abused by prescription drug addicts.”

Schaaf also said the bill displays big government qualities and would infringe upon individual liberties and freedoms.

“This wouldn’t help treat individuals’ problems with prescription drug addiction,” Schaaf said. “People would find ways around the database system and simply use other methods to obtain prescription drugs, such as using fake IDs.”

The method by which individuals fraudulently obtain multiple prescriptions is through doctor shopping, according to the DEA. The agency states that doctor shopping is the most common method for an addict to obtain an illegal prescription.

The DEA defines doctor shopping as a method in which an individual will visit multiple doctors, often on the same day or week. An individual will request a certain narcotic, and continue this process until several prescriptions are given.

Currently, a doctor in Missouri has no way to verify if a patient is currently receiving a prescription. The new legislation aimed at this practice will address this issue and hopefully curb the rampant problem of doctor shopping in Missouri, Engler said.

“Every doctor I have talked to is in support of this legislation,” Engler said in his weekly legislative update. “Even pharmaceutical companies that make money on every pill sold, regardless of how it’s used, testified in support of a drug-monitoring program and I will continue to fight to get this legislation passed because, simply put, it is the right thing to do.”