The state database would provide health-care professionals with a way to determine whether someone is "shopping" for doctors and pharmacists to obtain multiple prescriptions to feed their addictions, to divert for sale on the street, or both.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that prescription drugs were involved in 20,044 of the 36,450 fatal overdoses nationwide in 2008, the most recent statistics available.
Of the prescription drug deaths, 14,800 - 74 percent - involved opioid pain relievers such as OxyContin, Opana, Vicodin, and methadone. That rate for prescription opioid fatalities is more than three times what it was in 1999 and now exceeds overdose deaths involving heroin and cocaine combined.
The Obama administration released a plan last year for dealing with the epidemic, calling for education, proper medication disposal, enforcement, and tracking and monitoring.
Pennsylvania was tied with Ohio at 10th in the country in fatal overdoses in 2008, with a rate of 15.1 deaths per 100,000 people, as compared to the national average of 11.9 deaths per 100,000, according to the National Vital Statistics System.
In 2010, 8 kilograms of opioids were sold per 10,000 people in Pennsylvania, as compared to the national average of 7.1 kilograms per 10,000, according to the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
"If addicts and diverters know they are going to get checked, it's going to go a long way to stop them from shopping around," DiGirolamo said. "The goal is to get addicts into treatment and in recovery so they can be productive citizens and not out there in the community committing crimes to support their habits."
