[Pharmwaste] Va. bill aims to stop people from abusing their pets' prescriptions

DeBiasi, Deborah (DEQ) Deborah.DeBiasi at deq.virginia.gov
Wed Mar 7 09:18:26 EST 2018


http://www.richmond.com/news/local/government-politics/stealing-fluffy-s-pain-killers-va-bill-aims-to-stop/article_3fd28817-ce40-509c-9c08-8f4b8d180363.html

Stealing Fluffy's pain killers? Va. bill aims to stop people from abusing their pets' prescriptions

  *   By NED OLIVER Richmond Times-Dispatch <https://www.richmond.com/users/profile/Ned%20Oliver>
CHRIS AMARAL
<http://www.richmond.com/content/tncms/live/#3>
Hydrocodone pills, also known as Vicodin, are arranged for a photo at a pharmacy in Montpelier, Vt. on Tuesday, Feb. 19, 2013
Virginia's fight against rising rates of opioid addiction has an unlikely new front: the vet's office.
Prompted in part by a disturbing anecdote out of Kentucky in which a woman was accused of cutting her dog with a razor to score painkillers from her veterinarian, the General Assembly is poised to begin tracking prescriptions issued to animals through the state's prescription monitoring program.
The system was put in place more than a decade ago to help identify human patients who visit multiple doctors to obtain painkiller prescriptions. The new law would expand it to make it easier to identify people who frequently seek out drugs with high potential for abuse for their pets, said the measure's sponsor, state Sen. William Stanley, R-Franklin.
"You're talking about not just opioids," Stanley said. "If your dog is afraid of thunder, they're giving a sedative. There's a lot of drugs that, when they're administered to a person, it goes through the (monitoring) system, but it's not happening for pet owners."
The measure passed the Senate unanimously and the House of Delegates 97-1. It now goes to Gov. Ralph Northam's desk.
Stanley's district includes Martinsville, which a recent study found has the highest per-capita rate of opioid prescriptions in the country. Opioids, a class of drugs that also includes heroin, have been responsible for more than 7,500 overdose deaths in Virginia since 2007.
Stanley said he proposed the measure after being approached by local veterinarians.
"They were concerned people who may be addicted to opioids were coming to their offices with injured dogs and cats and were trying to obtain opioids," he said. "And they were concerned they were trying to obtain those opioids not for the dogs or cats, but to feed their own addiction."
It's unclear how widespread the problem is. Several states, including Colorado and Maine, have passed similar laws.
While veterinarians don't prescribe the most frequently abused prescription drugs - namely OxyContin and Percocet - they do dispense doses of pharmaceuticals like hydrocodone and Tramadol, a synthetic opioid to treat pain and coughs in both humans and pets. They also prescribe anti-anxiety medication such as Xanax. All have a potential for abuse.
The case in Kentucky, in which a 23-year-old woman was accused of cutting her dogs with razors in 2014 in an effort to obtain pain medication, is frequently cited. But it appears to be the only story in which someone is alleged to have harmed an animal with the explicit goal of obtaining pain medicine.
"Thankfully, I do not have a member of our state association of veterinarians that has come to me with that scenario," said Susan Seward, a lobbyist for the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association, which supported the legislation following changes that put the onus on pharmacies to handle the reporting, and only in cases where the prescription is for more than one week.
Cases in which pet owners either exaggerate or fabricate symptoms appear to be more commonplace.
In 2016, the Fairfax County Police Department put together a pamphlet advising veterinarians how to identify suspicious clients after a dog owner was charged with prescription fraud for taking his 10-year-old boxer to six veterinarians, from which he received Xanax and Tramadol after describing knee pain and separation anxiety.
Dr. Kelly Gottschalk, who owns the Wellesley Animal Hospital in Short Pump, said she became suspicious after a client repeatedly reported losing his dog's prescription painkillers and asking for refills. In another case, she said she began to doubt a client who asked for a medication by name.
"When I talk to colleagues, I hear similar stories," said Gottschalk, who is the president-elect of the Virginia Veterinary Medical Association. "It's rare. It's probably less than once a year, but we have certainly had those red flags."
noliver at timesdispatch.com<mailto:noliver at timesdispatch.com>


Deborah L. DeBiasi
Email:   Deborah.DeBiasi at deq.virginia.gov<mailto:Deborah.DeBiasi at deq.virginia.gov>
WEB site address:  www.deq.virginia.gov<http://www.deq.virginia.gov/>
Virginia Department of Environmental Quality
Office of Water Permits
Industrial Pretreatment/Whole Effluent Toxicity (WET) Program
PPCPs, EDCs, and Microconstituents
http://www.deq.virginia.gov/Programs/Water/PermittingCompliance/PollutionDischargeElimination/Microconstituents.aspx
Mail:          P.O. Box 1105, Richmond, VA  23218
Location:  1111 E. Main Street, Suite 1400  Richmond, VA  23219
PH:         804-698-4028      FAX:      804-698-4032

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.dep.state.fl.us/pipermail/pharmwaste/attachments/20180307/00a310de/attachment.html>


More information about the Pharmwaste mailing list