Jan. 9, 2019 – Statesman.com — A Houston lawmaker has filed the 86th Legislature’s first three bills aimed at tackling the state’s opioid crisis, including one that would require pharmacists to put a red cap on all prescription opioids warning patients of their risks.
Another bill would require a label on the medications in all capital letters to warn that the drugs can cause addiction and death; a third would require pharmacists to verbally go over the risks with patients and get a signed acknowledgement before they are dispensed.
State Rep. Shawn Thierry, a Democrat from Texas’ 146th District in Harris County, filed House Bill 562, HB 563 and HB 536 last month after the House Select Committee on Opioids and Substance Use released a 108-page report detailing the dangers of opioids and other drugs, and looking at how they affect law enforcement, the court system and families across Texas.
“A lot of the statistics that came from that report were very glaring to me,” Thierry told the American-Statesman. “We’ve got to do something.”
Nearly 3,000 people in Texas died from drug overdoses in 2017, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, but it’s unclear how many of the deaths were related to opioids. The most recent numbers provided by state health officials are from 2015, when 1,174 people died from opioid overdoses.
“Losing a loved one to an opioid overdose is a tragedy that far too many Texas families experience,” Thierry said last month when she filed the bills. “These distinctive red caps will serve as a clear notice to Texans that opioids are unlike milder forms of prescription pain relievers and have life-altering risks that must be considered before taking them.”
Thierry said warning labels are used on everything from food to tobacco products, and including them on prescription opioids is a “no brainer”. “The more we can educate our residents the less likely they will be to misuse these medications,” she said.
Similar legislation requiring red caps on opioid medication was passed in Arizona last year. If approved by Texas lawmakers, the requirement would be the first of its kind in the state, Texas State Board of Pharmacy Executive Director Allison Benz said. Benz, though, said she is concerned the measure could have unintended consequences.
“I get the idea about it, because you certainly don’t want to reach into your medicine cabinet and pull out an opioid and think you are taking a blood pressure medication,” she said. “But you hear all these stories, people go through your medication cabinet and they find prescriptions for opioids and they steal them. You put that red cap on there, it is going to take one second to see it, put it in your pocket. That kind of concerns me.”
Benz said pharmacists already are required to go over the risks of medications with patients before they dispense them. “I feel like those are sort of covered, but it would be beefing it up to some extent,” she said. “It certainly wouldn’t hurt.”
A spokeswoman for Thierry’s office said no costs are associated with the bills. As for industry or pharmaceutical groups who are supporting the legislation, she said they were still setting up meetings with such groups so did not have a full list yet.
The committee’s report from November offered nearly 100 recommendations on how to address opioid and substance abuse in the state, including a need to “educate patients regarding the risks associated with highly addictive substances and how to safely dispose of their medication prior to prescribing opioids.”
Many of the other recommendations centered around a lack of available treatment resources in Texas and the need to expand services, including those for medication-assisted treatment like methadone and Suboxone for opioid addiction.
Thierry said she plans to file more bills that will address substance abuse treatment, as well as one that would put a five- or seven-day limit on all opioid prescriptions. “We know they are overprescribed,” she said. “That would incentivize doctors to use alternative medications.”
