![]() ![]() Shortly after the Long Island pharmacy murders, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman introduced the I-STOP Act to New York State’s legislature. At the time of the Long Island pharmacy massacre, however, only two states-Kentucky and West Virginia-legally required a prescriber to consult a patient’s prescription history before prescribing a controlled substance. Despite this, all states except Missouri currently have a monitoring program or have enacted laws mandating the development of a drug database. A study of monitoring programs in 2011 revealed that drug databases failed to make any impact on mortality rates related to overdose from prescription drugs. Online programs were underfunded and rarely utilized by clinicians. Even after the creation of readily accessible online databases monitoring programs remained ineffective. The term doctor shopper refers to a patient obtaining controlled substances from multiple healthcare practitioners without the prescribers’ knowledge of the other prescriptions.īefore the Internet, prescription-monitoring programs were ineffective because of the inherent delay of paper reporting the inaccessibility to the database during off-hours and under utilization due to the voluntary nature of consultation with the database. Monitoring programs alert prescribers of aberrant drug-seeking behavior by a patient, helping to identify patients who are doctor shoppers and drug diverters, as well as medical professionals engaged in over-prescribing. Since 1983, federal legislation supported the formation of state-based databases to track controlled substances prescribed to patients. In general, these monitoring programs are drug databases containing information about medication already dispensed to patients. Governmental efforts to achieve informed prescribing have principally relied upon prescription-drug monitoring programs. Medical professionals must balance the substantial benefits derived from painkillers with unnecessary over-prescribing to drug diverters. Many factors have contributed to the over-prescribing of opiates: an increased emphasis on pain management by society as a whole aggressive promotion of powerful but addictive drugs by pharmaceutical companies and lack of expertise in pain management by some practitioners. Many individuals believe that painkillers are safe because doctors prescribe the drugs, pharmacists dispense them, and the prescription painkillers do not seem as threatening as injecting-or shooting up-heroin or snorting cocaine. The body not only develops psychological and physical dependence to opiates, but also requires the drug in increasing amounts to experience their effect and forestall withdrawal. Opiates are highly addictive with a significant potential for abuse, especially to those with mental illness, depression, or a history of substance abuse. The associated risks, however, are profound. ![]() Opiates provide a substantial medical benefit by effectively relieving crippling pain. After 2009, such deaths surpassed motor vehicle accidents as the leading cause of accidental death in the United States. The number of deaths from painkillers increased from 4,000 deaths in 1999 to 16,651 deaths in 2010. population increased by only sixteen percent from 1997 to 2011, but the amount of oxycodone (another type of opiate painkiller) sold by pharmacies increased by 1,250 percent. This epidemic closely parallels the explosion of prescriptions written by practitioners for controlled substances-in particular, opiate analgesics (or painkillers). The Long Island pharmacy massacre was an extreme example of a drugstore robbery by prescription-drug addicts.ĭuring the last decade, prescription-drug abuse has exploded across America while use of illegal drugs like heroine and cocaine has fallen significantly over this same period. A police search of Laffer’s apartment, minutes from the Medford pharmacy, yielded thousands of the stolen pills. More than 11,000 hydrocodone pills-prescription painkillers-were missing from the drugstore’s inventory. The pharmacy’s video surveillance revealed David Laffer stuffing bottles of prescription pills into a backpack. The Long Island pharmacy massacre was not a robbery gone awry. ![]() Melinda Brady, driver of the getaway car, was charged with third-degree robbery. Laffer was charged with first-degree murder. Three days later, David Laffer and his wife, Melinda Brady, were arrested. Seven gunshots later, four people lay dead-killed at close range without signs of resistance. On June 19, 2012, one lone gunman entered a small pharmacy in Medford, Long Island. ![]()
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