making sure legal prescriptions stay that way

According to the 2004 National Drug Control Strategy, the illegal diversion, theft, and medical mismanagement of prescription drugs present a larger public health and law enforcement challenge than cocaine or heroin. In fact, the most recent National Survey of Drug Use and Health states that the misuse of prescription pain relievers and other psycho-therapeutic drugs was the leading category of illicit drug use, second only to marijuana.

In the fight against prescription drug diversion, sharing information across state lines has become a critical need. While patients and healthcare providers frequently cross state lines for perfectly legitimate reasons, prescription drug abuse knows no boundaries.

One reason for the crippling inability to share prescription tracking information across states lines is the lack of legislative action permitting it. Many states are trying to amend their laws, however, there are no standards for data accumulation among the states currently operating prescription-monitoring programs. So, for diversion investigators it is often extremely difficult if not impossible to share that information.