State lawmakers are working toward creation of a prescription drug database that could help crack down on abuses that have contributed to making prescription drug abuse the leading cause of death, surpassing car accidents.

The main goal of the database is to track the prescriptions written for and sale of powerful painkillers such as Vicodin. Once the database is up and running, law enforcement, medical providers and pharmacies could all be on the lookout for patients who “doctor shop” to get multiple prescriptions and for doctors who write excessive numbers of prescriptions for certain commonly abused pain killers.

The targeted narcotic pain killers, such as Vicodin and OxyContin, play a role in more than 16,000 overdose deaths a year in the U.S.

Different drug database bills have been working their way through the state Legislature, with the main difference related to protecting privacy of patients and whether or not a search warrant is required to access the prescription database. The House version includes a search warrant provision; the Senate version does not.

While privacy concerns are important, it’s more important to get the database up and running. Details, such as access limits, could be worked out later.

Pennsylvania is already behind many other states in creating such a database. While not a silver bullet-solution to end prescription drug abuse, the database can be a powerful tool to identify, track and stop common practices that contribute to abuse and death.

Some people seeking the pain killers for their own addiction or for sale will go to multiple doctors stating they have conditions requiring pain medication. A database of prescriptions would espose this “doctor shopping.”

In a few cases, doctors have been found to be writing too many prescriptions for these pain medications — either because of laziness, not evaluating each patient’s true need for the medications, or, in a few cases because they are getting cash for the drugs sold to abusers or addicts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a recent study that found “problem doctors” are a major contributor to prescription drug abuse. Another study found that these overprescribing doctors were tied to more than half of the prescription drug overdose deaths in Southern California. In that case, a state database already exists, but a study by the Los Angeles Times found that authorities were failing to dig into the drug database to identify the overprescribing doctors.

A database tracking these increasingly abused prescription drugs can be a powerful tool in reducing drug abuse, criminal activity and overdose deaths.

There are issues, though. Protecting the privacy of patients taking prescription drugs is one. But there must be ways to grant law enforcement, doctors and pharmacists access in a way that also protects patient privacy.

A second issue, seen in the Times report, is that to reap benefits of the database — using it to reduce abuse, doctor shopping, overprescribing doctors will take time. But that means more work for people in doctor’s offices and pharmacies.

A third issue is the concern that a crackdown on the abuse of prescription painkillers will drive some people to the illegal drug market, such as heroin, with equally deadly results.

Still, better tracking of the powerful prescription drugs that are most commonly abused is a commonsesense approach to addressing the crisis. It’s time for Pennsylvania lawmakers to get the ball rolling.