Utah Legislature: House approves prescription drug abuse bills

Representative Brad Daw, a member of the SMART coalition, has been working on three bills regarding prescription drug abuse.  The bills are as follows:

• HB0028 would require practitioners who prescribe controlled substances to register to use the Division of Occupational and Professional Licensing’s (DOPL) Controlled Substance Database and gain information on abuse prevention (see http://le.utah.gov/~2010/bills/hbillint/hb0028.pdf).
• HB0035 would require notification to the practitioner when a patient is admitted to the hospital for an overdose involving a prescription the practitioner may have given the patient (seehttp://le.utah.gov/~2010/bills/hbillint/hb0035.pdf).
• HB0036 similarly requires notification of a practitioner if a patient is convicted of driving under the influence of a controlled substance that the doctor may have prescribed to the patient (seehttp://le.utah.gov/~2010/bills/hbillint/hb0036.pdf).

To contact your legislature and support these bills, visit the following website. Enter your address. Click on the Representative and Senator you wish to contact and ask them to support the bills.

To read more on Representative Daw’s work on legislation regarding prescription drug abuse, an article was posted in the Deseret News.

Utah County’s Drug Prevention Summit

Last month the Substance Misuse and Abuse Reduction Team (SMART), hosted a Drug Prevention Summit. Elected officials including mayors, commissioners, representatives, and senators from Utah County were invited to attend. The SMART coalition presented their 3-5 year action plan to address alcohol and prescription drug abuse. 11 elected officials joined the coalition after this successful night! For more information read the following new article in the Deseret News

Here is a fact slideshow presentation that played throughout the night:

Be sure to join SMART on facebook!