Ten years after Maine's prescription drug monitoring program was first implemented, Jackie Farwell of the Bangor Daily News takes an in-depth look at the program.
The program was launched to curb doctor-shopping, where addicts seeking narcotic prescriptions visit multiple doctors.
Farwell's investigation shows a program with significant flaws, but with an important role to play in combatting drug addiction in Maine.
From the story:
"The prescription painkiller epidemic has its roots in the late 1990s, when influential medical organizations began encouraging doctors to consider pain as a measurable symptom to document and treat. Around the same time, potent new painkillers such as OxyContin were hitting the market.
Many doctors began prescribing the powerful narcotics more frequently, without anticipating the wave of opiate addiction that later occurred."