By Jordan Gentile
Enquirer Columbus Bureau

COLUMBUS - Ohio lawmakers hope to help police attack a growing black market in powerful prescription drugs with a new statewide database that would track their sales.

A bill introduced Wednesday is aimed at halting an increase of "doctor shopping" cases, in which patients visit many doctors to get several prescriptions for drugs like the addictive painkiller OxyContin. In these instances, police often suspect drug abuse or illegal selling.

The success of a similar database in Kentucky has made Southwest Ohio vulnerable to people looking to get large amounts of drugs they can no longer get in the commonwealth, says the bill's sponsor, Rep. Tom Raga, R-Mason.

"We're fine targets," Raga said. "Ohio has the fewest restrictions, so we get the most abuse."

Law enforcement officials who investigate doctor-shopping cases agree.

Regina Zimmerman, a special investigator for the Cincinnati police, said that as recently as New Year's Eve she tracked $1,600 worth of illicit prescription drug purchases back to a group of people in Kentucky.

"They view Ohio as a security blanket," Zimmerman said. "They come over here thinking they can't be tracked."

Doctors and pharmacists would use the database to view their patients' past drug purchases before prescribing or filling new medications. They could also add new information to the database so police can keep track of suspicious buying patterns.

Officials say those patterns are hard to detect without input from all doctors and drug sellers in Ohio.

"We're just hitting the tip of the iceberg," said Tim Benedict, assistant director of the Ohio State Board of Pharmacy, which investigates doctor-shopping cases. "There's no formal way of identifying these individuals."

While doctors agree a database will help crack down on doctor shopping, some fear the proposed system could be used by police to invade the privacy of people who take prescription drugs legally.

Bill Byers, a lobbyist for the Ohio State Medical Association, said his group is concerned that any patient using a drug like OxyContin would be vulnerable to a records search.

"It would allow police to go on a fishing expedition," Byers said.

But Raga said police already have the right to look into a patient's prescription records at individual pharmacies. He said the database would only coordinate this information and make it accessible to investigators statewide.

"Could someone pull your information up?" Raga said. "Yes. But only under an ongoing, approved investigation."

Raga first proposed a database more than two years ago, when officials in Southwest Ohio told him that abuse of prescription painkillers was on the rise. The measure stalled in the Senate.

Raga said the database would cost nearly $1 million in its first year. A $180,000 federal grant would help get it started.

"We spend a lot of time and energy on prescription drug abuse," Raga said. "This will speed up the investigations and put the sellers behind bars."