Drug Abuse in West Virginia

The House of Delegates is moving quickly on a string of Senate-passed measures targeting prescription drug abuse, a major topic in that chamber this session, The Associated Press reports.

The House's Health and Human Resources Committee has already advanced one of those measures, which "would require all pharmacies in the state to provide pharmacists with access to West Virginia's online prescription drug database," writes AP's Tom Breen. "The idea is to allow pharmacists to see when patients are trying to get multiple fills on a single prescription, a common practice for people abusing drugs."

But the article said that Rite Aid and CVS, perhaps the state's largest pharmacy chains, "have internal policies restricting employee access to the Internet for security reasons." It adds that a Rite Aid spokeswoman said her " company doesn't think the West Virginia bill would be too onerous to meet."