A long-running battle to establish a database to monitor for prescription drug abuse in Missouri — the only state without one — is about to hit a boiling point.
On one side is Republican state Senator Rob Schaaf, who once said that when people die of overdoses that “just removes them from the gene pool.”
Schaaf, who is a physician, has squashed legislation in the past six sessions to establish a prescription drug monitoring program, or PDMP. But sensing urgency that the legislation might pass this session, Schaaf introduced his own bill to set up a PDMP that’s unlike those in any other state — a proposal that medical experts have called a “sham.”
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