Bills to establish a prescription drug monitoring program in Montana have failed in the past two state legislative sessions, despite widespread support from pharmacists, law enforcement and doctors.

The last effort - House Bill 267 - was tabled in the House Human Services Committee.

"Everybody was on board. It was the committee," said Lily Yamamoto, bureau chief for the Montana Board of Crime Control. "I think that somehow we didn't make the case to the committee how important a prescription monitoring program is."

In 2007, the Montana Board of Crime Control received a $50,000 federal grant to plan a monitoring program. It missed out on another $400,000 available to the state to build a database after legislation failed that same year.

Under the 2009 measure, data about controlled prescription drugs from approximately 249 in-state pharmacies and 280 mail-order pharmacies would have been uploaded on a weekly basis into a database managed by the state Board of Pharmacy. Pharmacists, doctors and law enforcement personnel holding a search warrant could have used the system, which also would have automatically flagged those filling a suspicious amount of painkiller prescriptions.

"There would be a threshold for law enforcement to access the system," Yamamoto said. "It's not something they could just go fishing in."

The Legislative Fiscal Division estimated the program would cost about $415,000 to build and operate during its first year. Most of that would almost certainly have been covered by a $400,000 grant from the Department of Justice, Yamamoto said. Annual license fees of about $25.00 for pharmacists, physicians and other drug distributors would have sustained the program.

The Montana Pharmacy Association, Montana Medical Association, Montana Nurses Association, Montana Police Protective Association, Montana Association of Chiefs of Police, Montana Narcotics Officers Association and Montana Department of Justice all supported the bill, along with a wide range of other proponents, from the American Cancer Society to the Montana Contractors Association.

Only the group Patients and Families United offered testimony opposing the bill at its hearing before lawmakers in January. Patients and Families United is a statewide organization that advocates for medical marijuana patients and those who suffer from chronic pain.

"The real bottom line source of our concern is we just don't trust the security of the database that would be created here. We live in an era when high school kids hack into the U.S. Department of Defense computer system," said Tom Daubert of Patients and Families United during the hearing.

Daubert also told lawmakers that many people suffering from chronic pain already struggle to find proper pain treatment.

"The circumstance the people I work with face is the accusation that they're doctor shopping when they're just asking for help no one will provide," Daubert said to the committee.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, which opposed the 2007 bill, offered only informational testimony in 2009, noting that the new legislation included more safeguards to protect privacy rights. Those safeguards included a ban on using information from the database as evidence in a civil or criminal proceeding, a prohibition on any commercial use of the data, penalties of up to $250,000 for unlawful disclosure of the data, requiring a search warrant from law enforcement, and a purge of database records after three years.

In the end, most of the lawmakers on the committee said they were still concerned the database would undermine privacy rights, while others said the legislation would do little to actually curb prescription drug abuse.

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