Prescription Drugs

State officials on Tuesday unveiled improvements to their prescription medication tracking system, including the capability to instantly flag whether patients are abusing those drugs -- an issue highlighted with the deaths of celebrities Anna Nicole Smith and Michael Jackson. The Controlled Substance Utilization Review and Evaluation System, known as CURES, includes more than 100 million entries for controlled substances prescribed in California. But doctors and pharmacists had to wait days to find out whether a patient was seeking a prescription legitimately or not. The upgraded system allows healthcare professionals to instantly track a broad range of controlled substances, including anti-anxiety medications, painkillers and sedatives, through the Internet.

Celebrity disc jockey and Los Angeles club owner Adam Goldstein -- better known by his professional alias, DJ AM -- died of an overdose of cocaine and prescription drugs, the New York medical examiner ruled Tuesday. "The cause of death was accidental drug overdose due to the combined effects of cocaine, Vicodin, oxycodone, Ativan, Klonopin, Xanax, Benadryl and levamisole," said Ellen Borakove, a spokeswoman for the New York medical examiner. Levamisole is a medication drug dealers cut cocaine with prior to selling it on the street.

Anna Nicole Smith's boyfriend was urged to send her away for drug treatment but dismissed the advice, saying rehab "would kill her," the late model's onetime bodyguard testified Thursday. Smith overdosed on prescription medication months after a conversation recounted by bodyguard Maurice Brighthaupt at an ongoing preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors have sufficient evidence to try Howard K. Stern and two physicians for illegally furnishing the Playboy playmate with sedatives, opiates and other drugs.

The father of Anna Nicole Smith's daughter testified Friday that a physician told him the model's drug use was "under control" two years before her death from an overdose of prescription medication. Larry Birkhead said he believed the Playboy playmate was addicted to methadone and other painkillers, and told her internist, Dr. Sandeep Kapoor, in a 2005 conversation that he feared she might be obtaining additional pills from other sources. Kapoor said, " 'I believe we have that under control now,' " Birkhead told a judge presiding over a preliminary hearing to determine whether prosecutors have enough evidence to charge Kapoor and two others with conspiracy to illegally furnish prescription medication to Smith.

A psychiatrist who treated a pregnant Anna Nicole Smith for drug withdrawal testified Monday that the model said she was willing to "do anything" for her unborn daughter but ultimately walked away from a plan to break her dependency on prescription medication. Ten months after the hospitalization described by Dr. Nathalie Maullin, the 39-year-old former Playboy playmate died from an overdose. Prosecutors are pursuing charges against her boyfriend, Howard K. Stern, and two physicians for conspiracy to illegally provide her with prescription medication and other charges.

A psychiatrist described as a close friend and maternal figure to Anna Nicole Smith repeatedly prescribed excessive amounts of sedatives and opiates despite the model's history of substance abuse, an expert testified Monday. The expert told a judge hearing evidence against Dr. Khristine Eroshevich and two others that medical and pharmacy records indicated at least five instances in which the psychiatrist overprescribed Valium, Vicodin or other drugs in the three years leading up to Smith's death.

When the raucous gay pride parade coursed through West Hollywood's thronged streets four years ago, a slim, soft-spoken physician from Studio City rode in the back of a shiny convertible next to one of his patients, Anna Nicole Smith. "It was mesmerizing watching the crowd wave at us, at Anna and me, up there all buffed out on the car," Dr. Sandeep Kapoor recalled in his diary. Even more heady than the police escort and the paparazzi, he wrote, was the nightclub after-party. "I was making out with Anna, my patient, blurring the lines.

More than 2 1/2 years after Anna Nicole Smith overdosed on a cocktail of powerful medications in a Florida hotel room, a judge Friday ordered two Los Angeles physicians and her boyfriend to stand trial for illegally providing her with prescription drugs. The ruling by Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Robert J. Perry came after a 13-day preliminary hearing that saw the final years of the Playboy playmate's life chronicled through the testimony of witnesses, including a former lover and a bodyguard, and in hundreds of pages of records from pharmacies, doctors' offices and hospitals.

The California Department of Motor Vehicles has told its employees that medical marijuana should be treated like any other prescription drug and its use alone does not justify yanking a driver's license. "Drivers will no longer have their licenses suspended or revoked simply because of their status as medical marijuana patients," said Joe Alford, chief counsel of Americans for Safe Access, which assists medical marijuana users. A spokesman for the DMV said it never had a policy to remove licenses from medical marijuana patients and made the change to an employee training manual as part of an update.

BOOSTER SHOTS Needless run on Tamiflu Consumer demand for the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza is skyrocketing -- which doesn't sit well with some health professionals. The prescription drugs can be used to prevent infection with influenza, including the swine flu virus. The drugs are also mildly helpful to people who are already infected with flu, shortening the duration of the illness by a day or so. But Pacific Palisades pharmacist Christine Amos was aghast when about 25 prescriptions for Tamiflu came into the store last Monday.