CMS applauds launch of Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention

Wednesday, September 25, 2013 07:34 AM

Robert J. Valuck, PhD, RPh, FNAP, professor at the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, presents the governor’s strategic plan on prescription drug abuse

Yesterday, Sept. 24, 2013, Colorado took another step toward reducing the abuse and misuse of prescription drugs by launching the new Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention. This group, coordinated through the University of Colorado Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, provides a cooperative, interagency/interuniversity framework to enable professional organizations and state agencies to work together to implement a one-year strategic plan that focuses on six facets of the issue – the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP), treatment, prescriber and provider education, safe disposal, public awareness, and data/analysis.

The consortium will be guided by the framework set by the newly released Colorado Plan to Reduce Prescription Drug Abuse, the culmination of Gov. John Hickenlooper’s work with Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley and the National Governors Association. This strategic plan was developed over the course of the past year through four major events: First was the NGA Policy Academy, where experts identified focus areas and drafted the strategic plan. Next were the Colorado Roundtables, which brought together 185 experts to expand these initial recommendations. Third was the Colorado In-State Policy Academy, to finalize the recommendations and establish a timeline through May 2014. And, finally was the second NGA Policy Academy to review the final strategic plan.

“We applaud the Governor’s plan to reduce prescription drug abuse in Colorado and look forward to working with all stakeholders to achieve the plan’s goals,” said CMS President John Bender, MD, FAAFP.

As articulated in Gov. John Hickenlooper’s State of Health: Colorado’s Commitment to Become the Healthiest State (April 2013), the governor has pledged to reduce the prevalence of non-medical use of prescription pain medications in Colorado by 3.5 percent, or 92,000 Coloradans, by 2016. The adoption of the consortium’s strategic plan represents one step toward achieving that goal.

In the short term, the consortium will work to implement the one-year plan that sets six goals to be achieved through the work of the six workgroups. The intermediate goal is to get matching funds from state foundations and the long-term goal is to secure funding from the federal government and national foundations.