“Fed up that Missouri is the only state that doesn’t track the prescription and sale of opioids, some of its biggest cities and counties have created their own monitoring system to help combat the increasingly popular and highly addictive drugs.

Forty-nine states have established prescription drug monitoring programs, or PDMPs, which require pharmacies to report controlled substances dispensed to an electronic database. Advocates say monitoring helps stop “pill shopping” by people who seek multiple prescriptions from several doctors, either to feed their own addictions or to re-sell the drugs. They also can flag physicians who might be overprescribing such drugs.”

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