ANNAPOLIS — Maryland Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller Jr. says prescription drug abuse is soaring in the state — and Fido isn’t helping.
“Oxycontin is an epidemic and the people around here, they dont understand the issue,” said Miller, D-Calvert and Prince George’s counties. He said OxyContin is easy to obtain and “fast-becoming the drug of choice in southern Maryland.”
“I’m aware of a case where a fellah is taking his dog from vet, to vet, to vet because of the dog’s cancer, getting OxyContin pills and then consuming the pills himself,” Miller said. “If my wife took our dogs to the vet, our dogs who are 19 and 20, believe me they’d be consuming OxyContin too — that’s the way we feel about them, they wear diapers and everything else.”
Miller brought a bill to the Senate floor on Thursday that would ramp up prescription drug monitoring in the state. The legislation would create a statewide database of patients’ prescription history to help health officials identify drug abusers.
“The doctors are over-prescribing, [patients] get the pills and they are going for $30 a piece on the street and the kids are breaking them up and snorting it,” Miller said. Forty-three states have enacted legislation to help monitor prescription drug abuse.
“We are behind the eight-ball on this,” he said.
