The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) will soon enforce tighter restrictions on certain kinds of prescription pills that contain hydrocodone.

Dr. David Joseph, Chief Medical Officer at the Austin Diagnostic Clinic, discusses the new restrictions.

The DEA will change prescribing protocols to make it more difficult for physicians to prescribe and for patients to fill prescriptions for drugs containing hydrocodone. The new restrictions go into effect nationwide October 6.

Under the new protocol, the drugs will be re-classified from Schedule III to Schedule II, thus doctors will no longer be allowed to write prescriptions for more refills on the original prescription. They will also no longer be able to electronically send the prescription to the pharmacy. The patient will be required to take a handwritten prescription to their pharmacy.

The rescheduling of medication containing hydrocodone was initiated in 1999 by a petition from a physician. The DEA then submitted a request to Health and Human Services for a scientific and medical evaluation of the medication and a scheduling recommendation. The FDA voted to recommend a rescheduling of the pain medication in 2013 before the DEA declared its intent to reclassify the drugs two months later.