Arizona's Forty-eighth Legislature passed H.B. 2136 establishing a Controlled Substances Prescription Monitoring Program (CSPMP). The bill requires the Arizona State Board of Pharmacy (ASBP) to establish a controlled substances prescription monitoring program and requires pharmacies and medical practitioners who dispense controlled substances listed in Schedule II, III, and IV to a patient, to report prescription information to the Board of Pharmacy on a weekly basis. The new statutes, A.R.S. Title 36, Chapter 28 are available on the Board's website under the "Rules and Statutes" link.

A.R.S. § 36-2602 of House Bill 2136 requires the ASBP to establish a controlled substances prescription monitoring program that:

• Includes a computerized central database tracking system to track the prescribing, dispensing and consumption of Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances in Arizona,
• Assists law enforcement in identifying illegal activity related to the prescribing, dispensing and consumption of Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances,
• Provides information to patients, medical practitioners, and pharmacists to help avoid the inappropriate use of Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances, and
• Is designed to minimize inconvenience to patients, prescribing medical practitioners and pharmacies while effectuating the collection and storage of information.

The Board awarded a contract to Health Information Designs of Auburn, Alabama on March 31, 2008 to provide data collection, database storage and management, and web hosting services. The law requires anyone who dispenses Schedule II, III, IV controlled substances to report the dispensing of these drugs to the database. Mandatory reporting by pharmacies began on October 17, 2008. The Board will begin collecting dispensing practitioner’s data in October 2009.

The purpose of this legislation is to improve the State’s ability to identify controlled substance abusers or misusers and refer them for treatment, and to identify and stop diversion of prescription controlled substance drugs in an efficient and cost effective manner that will not impede the appropriate medical utilization of licit controlled substances.

The primary function of the ASBP is to provide a central repository of all prescriptions dispensed for Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances in Arizona. Authorized persons may request information from this repository to assist them in treating patients and identifying and deterring drug diversion, consistent with A.R.S. § 36-2604. Assuring confidentiality and the security of the data is a primary consideration for this program for all aspects to include data collection and storage, transmission of requests, and dissemination of reports.

If you have any questions, contact Dean Wright, Prescription Monitoring Program Director:

Contact Information
Dean Wright, Prescription Monitoring Program Director
Arizona State Board of Pharmacy
P.O. Box 18520
Phoenix, Arizona 85005
Phone: (602) 771-2744
Fax: (602) 771-2748
E-mail: dwright@azpharmacy.gov