New Would Make Prescription Records Available to Police Without a Warrant (crimes, how much)

[MrBojangles]

https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-te...e-prescription

Bill PDF: https://www.ncleg.net/Sessions/2017/...PDF/S616v3.pdf

https://www2.ncleg.net/BillLookup/2017/S616

Sponsors of the North Carolina bill say unfettered access to the database will help law enforcement “in their efforts to investigate and prosecute individuals who obtain legal prescription medication by illegal means, as well as those who distribute illicit medication and illegal opioids.”

[But] it erodes civil liberties by eliminating the requirement for law enforcement to obtain a court order before searching someone’s prescription records in the database

it opens up a person’s entire history of prescription records at the pharmacy after a single drug charge. Arrested on suspicion of possessing a little marijuana? Under the North Carolina bill, law enforcement could look at your entire pharmaceutical history, without any warrant or court order. Do you use birth control? Take medication to treat depression or anxiety? Ever taken antibiotics to treat a sexually transmitted disease? North Carolina law enforcement would get to know all that and more.

[LM117]

Not fond of it.

[BrianGC]

None of the government's damn business what people put into their own bodies.

Let me know when all the murders, rapes, theft, and other actual crimes that have actual victims are solved.

[Sue at the Rock]

HiPPA violation. Nope.

Once some dude in the NCGA wrote a bill that would prevent any medical professional from asking about gun ownership. I called my rep and told him I work as a suicide first responder and I'm gonna ask, law or not. The law didn't pass, but nobody in the government is entitled to private health information.

[BoBromhal]

it's probably poorly-written; looks like they should make it only apply to drug investigations related to the commission of a felony drug charge, and also possibly only make it relate to drugs which are used to treat illicit drugs, not licit.

shall request and receive from a pharmacy copies of prescriptions and records related to prescriptions in connection with a bona fide active investigation related to the enforcement of laws governing licit or illicit drugs

I don't know who wouldn't agree that they have no reason to know if you got an unrelated antibiotic prescription 5 years ago. But it also seems clear that what they're trying to do is combat the opioid epidemic.

[MrBojangles]

Originally Posted by BoBromhal

it's probably poorly-written; looks like they should make it only apply to drug investigations related to the commission of a felony drug charge, and also possibly only make it relate to drugs which are used to treat illicit drugs, not licit.



I don't know who wouldn't agree that they have no reason to know if you got an unrelated antibiotic prescription 5 years ago. But it also seems clear that what they're trying to do is combat the opioid epidemic.

Well, they need to start back at square one. This is how good intentions get bad. And I don't understand why they feel they don't need a warrant to do these activities. So much for "small-government" republicans.

[Jowel]

Originally Posted by Sue at the Rock

HiPPA violation. Nope.

Once some dude in the NCGA wrote a bill that would prevent any medical professional from asking about gun ownership. I called my rep and told him I work as a suicide first responder and I'm gonna ask, law or not. The law didn't pass, but nobody in the government is entitled to private health information.

Originally Posted by MrBojangles

Well, they need to start back at square one. This is how good intentions get bad. And I don't understand why they feel they don't need a warrant to do these activities. So much for "small-government" republicans.

Exactly. Just because the stated intention is to fight the opioid problem (which is indeed a huge problem) doesn't mean that the people involved get to be lazy and sloppy with short circuiting due process rights, and probably missing the intended target of the law anyway in this fishing expedition. And I wonder how much of our money the state would be willing to spend the first time this law gets challenged in court.

[MrBojangles]

https://twitter.com/NCHealthNews/sta...81011610554368

And there we go!

After 20 minutes of debate on the HOPE Act, the speaker pulled the bill. Many were hung up on this new opioid legislation that would allow law enforcement that ability to pull prescription records without a search warrant

[GarnetAndBlack]

So is the bill dead or what? ABC11/WTVD just ran a story on the news about the bill as if it’s still a thing. They even have a poll about it online.

[Carolina_native]

Personally, I think if there is a legit Law Enforcement investigation, then police should have no problem obtaining a search warrant in the first place.

So I do not support the bill.

I know we have an drug crisis in this state and country, but we have a tendency to go over board with reactions and bad and over-reaching laws seem to be the result.