California can target bad physicians, fatal overdoses

San Francisco Examiner (editorial)

Someone needs to ask Kamala Harris how much she thinks a life is worth. The California attorney general, who was San Francisco’s district attorney before assuming statewide office, has information at her fingertips that could be used to stop doctors from overprescribing deadly medicine. But her excuse for not taking action is the cost. The Los Angeles Times, in one part of a series about prescription drug overdoses, highlighted the power of something called the Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, more commonly referred to as CURES. That statewide system was created to document what prescriptions patients were filling and where they were doing it so they could not use one prescription repeatedly at different locations. Physicians, pharmacists and the Attorney General’s Office have access to the information.

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