NJ Developing Lower Prescription Limits For Potentially Addictive Painkillers
by KYW's David Madden
TRENTON, NJ (CBS) -- New Jersey's Attorney General is dealing with a mandate from Governor Chris Christie as part of his "State of the State" message. The effort is on to curb use of potentially addictive pain killers.
No more 30 day prescriptions for Oxycontin, Percocet and the like. Initial prescriptions will be limited to a 5 day supply under an emergency regulation being drawn up by Attorney General Christopher Porrino.
"The process that is involved includes providing the proposed rules to the Office of Administrative Law," Porrino told KYW Newsradio. "We'll do that in the next several weeks. After that, there's a 30 day comment period."
He suggests it'll take at least 45 days to get this done.
The state's Medical Society is on record against the change, saying "statutory medication limits decrease the quality of care and life for pain patients." Porrino says people should understand how far they want to go here.
"End of life care, terminal cancer patients who need these kind of pain treatments in order to live day to day, those kind of cases will not be affected," Porrino added.
Bottom line, they're just trying to curb the rising tide of addiction from those who take the pills for acute, short term pain.