Brown Signs Opioid Bill Into Law

Gov. Jerry Brown has signed a bill into law that would require physicians to undertake closer scrutiny of their patients' prescription history when they consider prescribing opioid painkillers.

SB 482 requires every physician to check out a patient's medication history in the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES) database whenever they dispense either opioids or any other drug that is potentially life-threatening.

Lawmakers decided to address the issue after overdoses from prescription opioids reached an epidemic level nationwide. Such deaths have quadrupled nationwide since 2000, reaching nearly 29,000 in 2014, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although overdose deaths in many Southern and Midwest states have continued to increase in recent years, California by dint of its population has the largest number of deaths in any state, and it continues to have issues with so-called “pill mills” operated by unscrupulous doctors.

Lisa Tseng, M.D., a Rowland Heights physician, was convicted last year of murder in connection with her lax prescribing practices, leading to the deaths of at least three of her patients. It was among the first times in the U.S. a doctor was convicted of murder for overprescribing medications. Tseng was sentenced to 30 years to life in state prison earlier this year.

"This law will finally put the state on the front lines of the battle against opioid addiction,” said Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica-based advocacy group that pushed for legislative reform. “Reviewing a patient's prescription history before prescribing helps doctors identify doctor shopping, reduce opioid overprescribing and save lives."