Minnesota online prescription law signed by governor

ST. PAUL, Minn. Gov. Tim Pawlenty signed into law Thursday S.F. 2941, a law that will make obtaining addictive prescription drugs online without prescriptions more difficult for Minnesota residents.

The law will invalidate drug orders and prescriptions for certain drugs not made on the basis of documented patient evaluations that establish diagnoses. Drugs affected include muscle relaxants, centrally acting analgesics with opioid activity and drugs containing butalbital.

The law is nicknamed “Justin’s Law,” after Justin Pearson, a 24-year-old St. Cloud, Minn., resident who died on Christmas of 2006 after overdosing on Vicodin that he had obtained without a prescription. Pearson had been prescribed Vicodin for a weight-lifting injury, but doctors stopped after he developed an addiction. He was still able to obtain Vicodin on line, however, and was taking 80 pills a day at the height of his addiction, according to the Associated Press.