Among disappointments from the legislative session that ended Friday is failure to approve a prescription drug monitoring program for Missouri.
Increasing abuse of prescription painkillers on both the state and national levels has been well document in medical studies and news stories.
In response, every state except Missouri has created a prescription drug monitoring program to identify and aid patients who attempting to exceed the prescribed dosage of prescription painkillers, including oxycodone and morphine.
Why is this a problem? Opioid painkillers are mood-altering, highly addictive drugs prescribed under a doctor's supervision.
Once abuse leads to dependency, studies have found people pursue illegal and dangerous paths, including:
Doctor shopping, which is visiting multiple physicians to receive additional prescriptions.
Purchasing purported prescription drugs "off the street," rather than from licensed pharmacies. An Associated Press story earlier this year warned of impostor painkillers, created by drug dealers who substitute the cheaper, more potent drug, fetanyl, creating what one acting U.S. attorney called "a fatal overdose waiting to happen."
Transitioning to the illegal drug heroin, which in many areas is less expensive and more accessible. That's not alarmist rhetoric; a study last year by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found about 75 percent of new heroin users first became hooked on prescription opiates.
Patients who get hooked on prescription opioids not only may exceed the recommended doses, they may turn to street drugs, where they have no guarantee of the substance and amount they are ingesting.
The Narcotics Control Act, sponsored this session by Rep. Holly Rehder, R-Sikeston, would have established a prescription drug monitoring program to allow physicians and pharmacists to monitor the use of opioid painkillers.
Privacy concerns raised by opponents are disingenuous. Physicians prescribe and and pharmacists dispense those drugs; they already have access to that information.
Instead of a sensible program to identify and help patients before they descend into addiction, prescription drug abuse, addiction and fatal overdoses will remain unchecked in Missouri.
Legislative inaction on this issue is deplorable.