Missouri Farm Bureau President Garrett Hawkins made the following statement regarding the Missouri legislature’s creation of a Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP): 

“Our rural communities have been overrun by opioid drugs. To protect our citizens from this scourge, we must implement new tools for medical professionals. Today Missouri joins the other 49 states in adopting a statewide Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) to help curb overprescription and doctor shopping for pills. This will not solve the problem alone, but it can make it much harder for people to get addicted to pain medication in the first place. We thank Senator Holly Rehder for her tireless work on this issue over the past decade, as well as all those legislators who voted to give our doctors this needed tool.”