Missouri's biggest cities and counties have banded together to track the prescription and sale of opioids.
St. Louis County, the city of St. Louis and several other counties have their own prescription drug monitoring program set to go online next month.
Missouri is the only state without such a system, thanks largely to the efforts of a Republican state senator who has concerns about patient privacy and the potential for health records to be hacked.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says such systems have been effective in other states at reducing opioid overdose deaths, over-prescribing and pill shopping, in which people seek multiple prescriptions from several doctors.
