Missouri will no longer be the only state in the nation without a prescription drug monitoring program. A new state law has begun that will allow the creation of the database – for doctors to check for cases of suspected drug misuse. Through a compromise, a private board, made up of people in the medical field, will oversee the program.
After nine years of sponsoring the bill, State Senator Holly Rehder, R-Scott City, explains why she stayed the course to the very end.
State Sen. Holly Rehder (R-Scott City) speaks on the Missouri Senate floor in Jefferson City on March 9, 2021 (file photo courtesy of Harrison Sweazea at Senate Communications)
“I grew up on welfare and moving all the time and living in every trailer park in Southeast Missouri and moving from California to Florida you know on a Greyhound bus. I grew up around drugs, and I’ve seen them take the lives of many good good people, many intelligent people, and I’ve seen them destroy lives. No one says I want to be a drug addict when I grow up,” says Rehder. “To me, there’s not a lot of people fighting for those in my community from where I grew up. And, you know, for whatever reason, God allowed me to get out and I want to be a voice for those who haven’t.”
The other part of her inspiration to keep going has to do with her daughter’s 13-year battle with addiction.
“My daughter wasn’t raised like me. I mean she was raised in church multiple times a week and she was raised with parents in her business every day,” says Rehder. “She cut her finger at work and got it stitched up in the emergency room at 17. And they gave her a script of Loracet. I knew the signs, but yet my daughter was able to become addicted before I caught it.”
Her daughter, Raychel, eventually resorted to bath salts and meth. She served 120 days in prison in what is often referred to as “shock time”. Raychel also made several trips in and out of rehab.
Rehder says her daughter has been clean now for the past seven years.
To view Senate bill 63, click here.
To hear the Show Me Today interview with Sen. Rehder, click below.
Earlier story:
https://www.missourinet.com/2017/02/27/drug-monitoring-program-bill-sponsor-shares-her-own-familys-battle-with-drug-abuse/
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