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Bills aimed at cracking down on prescription drug abuse advance to the Senate

Today Gov. Mary Fallin thanked committee members for advancing a bill designed that would help crack down on prescription drug abuse in Oklahoma.

The bill would require doctors to check Oklahoma’s online prescription database before prescribing highly abused drugs. Checking the database would show doctors if a patient has been prescribed a drug before. This would help prevent people from seeing multiple doctors just to get the drugs they want.

The bill will now be heard in the full Senate.

In a statement sent to KRMG by the governor’s office, Fallin said, “Currently, 81 percent of drug-related deaths in Oklahoma are caused by prescription drugs.”

Fallin continued, talking about a recent survey that shows Oklahoma drug abuse rate is twice that of the national average.

Last year, Gov. Fallin signed a bill that led to the creation of the online prescription database. The database is already available for doctors to use, but not all do.

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