The ugly menace of prescription-drug abuse is ravaging Ohio communities, and state officials are right to make fighting it a top priority. Equally important is that legitimate pain management not suffer in the process.

Concerned pain experts are following the issue closely, and that offers encouragement that regulators will reach the right balance.

Easing pain might seem like one of medicine’s most fundamental interests, but a movement in recent decades has brought to light that most physicians receive only minimal training in pain management and that many did not pay sufficient attention to patients’ complaints of pain.

Pain-management advocates now urge doctors to consider pain a “fifth vital sign” and to take it more seriously.

Some fear that the push to combat the abuse of prescription painkillers will undermine the pain-treatment movement by making doctors afraid to prescribe needed narcotics, for fear they’ll be criticized by other doctors or even prosecuted for unknowingly enabling an addict.

New laws and rules for prescribers can improve the outlook for legitimate pain management by requiring more training for doctors on easing pain – not just avoiding abusers. A certain percentage of painkiller addiction involves people who began taking drugs under legitimate prescriptions for serious pain. Proper pain care from their doctors would help them avoid addiction.

Lawmakers should seek input from pain-treatment specialists and addiction experts alike, along with pharmacists, while considering legislation on the problem.

A bill in the Ohio Senate would require pain-management clinics, considered a major source of bogus prescriptions, to be licensed by the Ohio Board of Pharmacy. It also calls for more rules and greater oversight of those clinics in which more than half of patients receive narcotics.

The State Medical Board, which governs doctors, already has begun drafting rules aimed at curbing prescription-drug abuse. They would require pain-clinic doctors to be board-certified in pain management and to be affiliated with a local hospital.

These could be helpful on two fronts: The requirements might discourage any doctor more interested in making a buck than practicing responsible medicine. And on the positive side, the extra pain-management training would boost professional competence and help docs with the right intentions to better care for their patients and spot potential abusers.

Other steps are needed to curb painkiller abuse. A voluntary system to which doctors can report prescriptions is meant to help identify people who are doctor-shopping for multiple prescriptions. It’s a great idea, but the system is proving unable to keep up with increasing demand. The reporting system should be upgraded and the medical board should encourage all prescribers of pain medications to use it.