In 2012 Oregon sued the DEA to prevent it from enforcing the subpoenas to snoop around its drug registry. Two years ago a U.S. District Court found in favor of the state, ruling that prescription data is covered by the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unlawful search and seizure.
...“Although there is not an absolute right to privacy in prescription information... it is more than reasonable for patients to believe that law enforcement agencies will not have unfettered access to their records,” he added.
The DEA appealed and is still fighting for access to Oregon records.
In Utah, police accessed the prescription monitoring database more than 11,000 times in a single year. A state senator introduced a bill requiring the DEA to get a warrant. It became law a few months ago.
“If a police officer showed up at your home and wanted to look in your medicine cabinet and you said no, he would have to go and get a search warrant.”
The AMA has filed an Amicus Brief opposing the DEA's position in Oregon.
“The primary purpose of PDMPs is healthcare, not law enforcement,” the AMA said, adding that while PDMPs provide for referrals to law enforcement, they are not designed to be “a tool or repository for law enforcement to initiate access to gather information,” as is the case here with the DEA’s administrative subpoena.
The DEA claims:
The agency argues that it has a “compelling interest” that supplants any privacy protections attached to prescription data for controlled substances and that requiring a warrant “severely limits [its] ability to conduct timely, effective investigations.”
One example of abuse: An addicted Utah cop rummaged through the database and found an elderly couple prescribed painkillers. He was caught on video at their home stealing the pills.
I can't even fathom the rationale behind Wisconsin's law:
Wisconsin passed a law in March that liberalized access to its PDMP, making the data available to registered nurses without independent prescribing authority, medical directors, and substance abuse counselors. The law also removed a previous requirement that police obtain a search warrant to access the data.
Here's how bad it is all over:
According to the Department of Justice, only 19 states require a warrant for law enforcement to access their PDMP, and more than a dozen allow out-of-state police agencies access. Less than a quarter of states require that patients are notified when or if their prescription information might be accessed....Fifteen state registries even house information on non-controlled substances.
The DEA has it as*-backwards. It's not the over-abundance of pain pills that cause people to take heroin, which in turn sometimes leads to overdose and death -- it's the over-restriction of pain pills in recent years (and fear of prosecution instilled in doctors engaged in legitimate medical practices) that limited people's access to painkillers that turned them to heroin.
Congress should keep its laws off our bodies, let us decide on acceptable risks associated with prescription medication, in conjunction with our doctors, and either disband, defund or sharply rein in the global holy warriors of the DEA.
