ANNAPOLIS, MD (February 24, 2016) – Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen testified Wednesday before the Maryland Senate Finance Committee urging the General Assembly to support Senate Bill 382, legislation that revises Maryland’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), and offered amendments to the bill that would encourage physicians to co-prescribe naloxone with opioid medications and to caution against concurrent prescribing of opioids and benzodiazepines.

“As the Health Commissioner of a city that is addressing an epidemic of drug overdose with one of the most aggressive overdose prevention programs in the country, I support all efforts to save lives, including strengthening the state’s PDMP,” said Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Leana Wen. “While we are glad to support this legislation, we believe that the bill should go even further to ensure naloxone is being prescribed to all who are at risk for overdose, and that doctors are cautioned against the potentially lethal drug interaction of opioids and benzodiazepines.”

The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) was established by the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DHMH), Behavioral Health Administration (BHA) to support healthcare providers and their patients in the safe and effective use of prescription drugs. The PDMP collects and stores information on drugs that contain controlled substances and are dispensed to patients in Maryland and is a core component of the State’s and many local jurisdictions’ strategies for reducing alcohol- and drug-related overdoses.

Under the bill, prescribers and pharmacists will be required to register with the program and search the program database before prescribing or dispensing opioids. In her testimony today, Dr. Wen offered the following amendments to the proposed legislation:

• Revising proposed guidance to require providers to document when naloxone is not co-prescribed with an opioid and why;
• Revising proposed guidance to require providers to document when and why opioid pain medications and benzodiazepines are prescribed together and to acknowledge the potential danger;

Nationwide, over-prescribing and inconsistent monitoring of opioid pain medications is a major contributing factor to the overdose epidemic. According to the CDC, 259 million opioid prescriptions were written in 2014—enough for one opioid prescription for every adult American.

Dr. Wen has declared opioid overdose a public health emergency, and is leading one of the most aggressive opioid overdose prevention campaigns across the country, including:

• Distributing best practice letters to every doctor in the city addressing the importance of the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program and judicious prescribing of opioids;
• Introducing a public awareness campaign on how to use naloxone, “DontDie.org,” and educating drug users about dangers of fentanyl;
• Administering a citywide effort to expand the use of naloxone, training more than 8,000 residents in 2015 alone ;
• Introducing a first of its kind online naloxone training platform; and
• Issuing the State of Maryland’s first blanket prescription to make naloxone available for the city’s 620,000 residents.

Every day in the United States, 44 people die as a result of prescription opioid overdose. Approximately one in three unintentional overdose deaths from prescription opioids also involve benzodiazepines.

Earlier this week, a coalition of City and State health officials, co-led by Baltimore City Health Commissioner Dr. Wen, submitted a Citizen’s Petition to the Food and Drug Administration calling for a “black box warning” about the dangerous combination of opioids and benzodiazepines.

“By following our recommendations, we can take an important step to reduce the toll of addiction and fatal overdose in communities in Maryland and across the country,” added Dr. Wen.