Prescription Drugs

With epidemic rates of prescription opioid and heroin deaths in Maryland, families are demanding easier access to the antidote that could save the lives of their loved ones. Naloxone is used safely to reverse the effects of heroin and prescription opioid medications. Emergency medical technicians administer naloxone when they respond to an overdose emergency. All too often, however, these emergency responders do not arrive in time. State law bars family members and friends who may be in the best position to save the life of a person experiencing an overdose from obtaining a prescription for naloxone in their own name and administering this medication in an emergency.

Federal authorities announced Tuesday that they had cracked a large suburban Maryland drug organization, arresting 18 people and charging 15 of them with conspiracy to distribute more than a ton of marijuana. According to a federal grand jury indictment, the drug trafficking organization, primarily based in Anne Arundel County, also dealt in cocaine, prescription drugs, steroids and other drugs. Law enforcement officials said they seized at least 30 cars, 60 pounds of marijuana, $300,000 in cash and 35 guns in the investigation.

Man charged in sale of prescription drugsA Brooklyn Park man was charged with illegally selling prescription drugs after police searched his home late Wednesday.According to the police report, officers searched the home of James Franklin Crites, 51, in the 600 block of Biscay Ave. at 10:40 p.m. and seized illegal prescription pain killers and other drugs.Investigators said Mr. Crites sold the drugs to undercover officers shortly before the raid. He was also charged with possession of a controlled dangerous substance.

State health officials took the unusual step Thursday of suspending the authority of a Salisbury pain doctor to write prescriptions for opiates, narcotics and all other controlled dangerous substances commonly used to treat pain. The officials said Dr. Brent R. Fox wasn't conducting thorough exams of patients and was prescribing drugs in amounts outside of the standards. They will consider a permanent revocation next week and have referred the case to the state Board of Physicians for investigation of his right to practice medicine.

A Bel Air man was sentenced to more than 10 years in prison Tuesday after he pleaded guilty to selling prescription drugs on dozens of occasions, the U.S. Department of Justice announced. Ronnie Stocks, 34, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possession with intent to distribute the drug Oxycodone. He was sentenced by a U.S. District court judge to 101/2 years in prison with three years of probation. Harford County detectives said Stocks had about three dozen customers and typically sold them drugs in amounts less than $100.

FOR ALL THE right reasons, state lawmakers may take some unwise steps. They want to help seniors who are too poor to buy prescription drugs. But in doing so, they may be hurting Maryland druggists and committing the state to a program of immense proportions. Senators and delegates are trying to cobble together a bill that would help Medicare recipients, and those not quite poor enough to qualify for Medicare, obtain prescription drugs. A reluctant Gov. Parris N. Glendening put $6.5 million in his budget for this purpose.

WASHINGTON -- Leaders of a Senate panel are calling for more federal regulation of drug prices, citing a report that claimed the pharmaceutical industry had increased prices for the most frequently used prescription drugs last year by as much as five times the rate of inflation."

WASHINGTON -- Deficiencies in the Food and Drug Administration's system of approving and monitoring over-the-counter drugs have left it with little data on the number and types of adverse reactions and virtually no system of obtaining any, according to a General Accounting Office study.The report, to be released today by a subcommittee of the House Small Business Committee, noted that some over-the-counter drugs were known to cause serious problems under some conditions. For example, aspirin can cause internal bleeding.

WASHINGTON - Riding a wave of success on his prescription-drug plan, Vice President Al Gore plans to dedicate all this next week to a cross-country discussion of health care issues and a comparison of his proposals with those of Gov. George W. Bush. Gore's advisers, who outlined the strategy in a conference call yesterday morning, said that prescription drugs had emerged as the "top issue," and that Gore had surged in the polls in part because he had dedicated so much time to the issue.

WHY DO DRUG companies spend billions on direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription drugs when it's the doctors, not the patients, who write the prescriptions? An unconventional study published yesterday in The Journal of the American Medical Association gives a pretty clear answer. Researchers coached actors to visit doctors' offices with symptoms of specific mental health disorders. The pretend patients who asked for an antidepressant were far more likely to be diagnosed with a mental illness.