California Attorney General Wants More Prescription Drug Monitoring
California Attorney General Kamala D. Harris is calling on Governor Jerry Brown to restore funding to the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System (CURES), a prescription drug monitoring program. According to a report in The Los Angeles Times, Harris wants to restore funding to the CURES database because budget cuts have undermined the system. The CURES database includes the names of patients taking prescription narcotics, the doctors who prescribed the drugs, and the pharmacies that dispense them.
When fully funded, the system can be used to detect when a patient is “doctor-shopping” to obtain a surplus of prescription-strength medications. It is not clear if Harris will be able to get the funding necessary to maintain the program, as the governor’s budget does not currently earmark money for CURES.
