Steve Beshear on Drugs Democrat

KASPER: KY All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting

• When it came to non-medical use of prescription painkillers, Kentucky at one time had the 6th highest rate in the nation. But prescription drug abuse in Kentucky has dropped so much that we improved 24 spots.
• Furthermore, nearly half of the state's known pain management clinics have closed rather than submit to new rules that protect patients.
• The use of our nationally recognized prescription monitoring program, KASPER, has increased nearly 7-fold as providers work to ensure that painkillers are being used legally and effectively.
• And prescriptions for some of the most abused drugs have dropped up to 14% from a year ago.

Reduce historic addiction to tobacco with smoke-free law

Yet we've never instituted a statewide law to protect Kentuckians from second-hand smoke. More than half the states in the nation have smoke-free laws. So do three dozen cities and counties in Kentucky. In fact, nearly half of Kentucky's citizens live in communities that have adopted protections for their residents & workers. It's time for us to begin looking seriously at doing this on a statewide level--to extend this protection for all our citizens. Six in 10 Kentucky adults now favor a statewide smoke-free law, and that support increases with each survey taken. This isn't a rights issue. People could still smoke. Just not in places where their smoke endangers the health of our workers and others.

More penalties; more testing; more drug war funding

Beshear supports the following principles concerning illegal drugs:
• Increase penalties for selling illegal drugs.
• Impose capital punishment for convicted international drug traffickers.
• Require drug testing for federal employees in sensitive positions.
• Strengthen current laws dealing with non-controlled substances, including inhalants and commercially available pills.
• Increase funding of federally-sponsored drug education and drug treatment programs.