[UPDATE] The Senate killed HB 614 by a vote of 25 to 29. Kudos to Sen. Preston Smith for a great speech on privacy rights.
At some point today, the Georgia Senate will consider HB 614, the “Georgia Prescription Monitoring Program Act,” which would establish a state surveillance system for the monitoring of prescribing and dispensing of certain medications (Schedules II, III, IV, or V). Included in the database would be most pain relievers, anxiety medications, sleep aids, anti-diarrheals, and anything containing Codeine such as Robitussin.
This bill is bad social and fiscal policy and it violates the privacy and due process rights of Georgia citizens enumerated in the Georgia Constitution.
This bill is bad social policy because it allows government intrusion and second-guessing of the doctor-patient relationship. It treats Georgia citizens not as civilized people but as children who need to be monitored and controlled.
Also, as noted by the American Cancer Society, several studies indicate that prescription monitoring programs have a “chilling effect” on healthcare professionals’ prescribing of needed medication to legitimate pain patients for fear of being investigated by law enforcement.
This law is also bad fiscal policy. Once the initial federal funding for this program has run out, Georgia citizens will be left to foot the bill, which the U.S. Dept. of Justice estimates to cost the state up to $1 million annually. In our current economic crisis, this is not only fiscally irresponsible, it is downright immoral. Moreover, this program will not withstand judicial scrutiny and a lawsuit in its defense will cost the taxpayers that much more money.
This bill also violates the privacy and due process rights of Georgia citizens. It gives the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency access to the private medical records of Georgia citizens without probable cause.
Under Georgia law, no law enforcement official can lawfully obtain any part of a Georgia citizen’s medical record without first obtaining the patient’s consent or a court order, such as a search warrant or a subpoena. In Johnson v. State, the Georgia Court of Appeals held that “the State is not entitled to exercise indiscriminate subpoena power as an investigative substitute for procedural devices otherwise available to it in the criminal context, such as a search warrant.”
In King v. State, the Georgia Supreme Court reiterated that “In this state, privacy is considered a fundamental constitutional right and is ‘recognized as having a value so essential to individual liberty in our society that [its] infringement merits careful scrutiny by the courts.’” It also noted that “[p]ermitting the State unlimited access to medical records for the purposes of prosecuting the patient would have the highly oppressive effect of chilling the decision of any and all Georgians to seek medical treatment.”
There are alternative, much more reasonable methods of accomplishing the same ends of this legislation without the egregious constitutional violations of this bill’s means.
Contact your State Senator and ask them to please stand up for our privacy and due process rights and to not pave the way for Orwell’s big-government 1984. Please vote “NO” on HB 614.
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Jason,
Are you certain you know what “Schedule II, III, IV, or V controlled substances” comprise of?
Just another example of governmental “busy bodies” at work. You are correct about the Orwellian nature of these kinds of laws. Beware!!
isn’t alcohol and tobacco Schedule 5? Am I going to have to get a pharmacy license to pour liquor in my establishment?
I’m torn on this one. One part says “good. let some biddie hen rot in prison for pharma farming valuim ’scripts. So-called ‘legal drugs’ kill 2000 times more than marijuana.
The other side of me screams “POLITICIZING DRUG USE DOES NOT WORK IN REALITY’; this is just another ’sound byte’ created in a no-do lege, so the apologist incumbents can crow about how ‘tough they are on crime’.
Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting.
I want to know who is pushing for this bill to pass. What drug company, insurance company, or other interest is buying the steak dinners at Bones while sweet-talking the merits of this bill?
I put this up on our blog to, and I am urging everyone to contact their senators. This is a massive invasion of privacy and could also later affect insurance claims. While I am usually not opposed to some government involvement in the lives of citizens, I think this one stretches quite a bit too much.
It is also on SWGA Politics, and I’ve put it up on FB as well. Also sent an email out to my list.
This one needs to die, and we have basically until noon to contact the Senators to make it happen. I’ve already emailed all four SWGA Senators (Hooks, Crosby, Sims, and Bulloch).
Interesting! The federal grant $ the legislators are seeking with for this program comes from the U.S. Dept. of Justice, which ACTUALLY admits, “Efforts to implement state prescription drug monitoring programs tend to meet with opposition from a variety of groups including medical associations, pharmacy groups, pharmaceutical companies, patient advocacy groups, and civil liberty groups. The creation of a federal program would likely face opposition from those groups as well as from states’ rights groups and from officials in states currently operating their own PDMP. The question arises as to whether a national program would be compatible with existing state programs. States currently operating programs may have to revise existing programs to accommodate a national program.”
see for yourself http://www.deadiversion.usdoj.gov/faq/rx_monitor.htm#12
Dang, I meant to capitalize “medical associations, pharmacy groups, pharmaceutical companies, patient advocacy groups, and civil liberty groups.” How do I edit my comment?
This will be another failed attempt of moving the drug business toward gangs. All should listen to the late William F Buckley on this issue. We have only made the problem worse by criminalizing drugs. This is just one more failed attempt at the war on drugs.
William F. Buckley on cigarettes, illegal drug and hypocrisy
ALL SHOULD WATCH THE VIDEO
http://controlcongress.com/law-courts/jim-webb-pot-legalization-could-be-part-of-criminal-justice-overhaul
sorry
This will be another failed attempt at criminalizing drugs which will move more of the drug business toward gangs.
I wrote into the ABH and hopefully we will get some attention there tomorrow also.
Thanks PP for bringing this to my attention.
UGALiberal:
Tomorrow you will be talking about the RESULTS of the vote.
If you want to try to AFFECT it, you must act NOW.
Well, I cannot make them reprint the paper for today, but I have called, written and made others aware as best I can. I do agree though, tomorrow will be too late for the ABH article. Maybe if we can get enough people against it, we can get the governor to veto it. Who knows? But the thing is, I do not know why this was not brought up more during crossover day.
But the thing is, I do not know why this was not brought up more during crossover day.
Because, perhaps, there were doznes of other infinitesimal pet bills that someone else thought demanded more attention? Like, the makeup of the DOT…as if THAT impacts anyone’s liberty…
UGALiberal:
I was doing the GLW live blog that day, and honestly, there was a TON going on!
I agree that we should have caught this in the House, but to catch everything the House is doing effectively, you really need a team of people – which not even GLW has. I monitor the Senate pretty closely, and even that is taxing on one person. The House has roughly 3 times the members of the Senate, and a corresponding increase in the number of bills.
Unfortunately, this means things slip through and we don’t catch them until they hit the Senate.
But the thing is, I do not know why this was not brought up more during crossover day.
We did.
WE OPPOSE HB-614, The Georgia Prescription Monitoring Program Act. This is a particularly nasty surveillance plan that would violate State and Federal Constitutional protections of privacy and due process; it is an unreasonable search under the Fourth Amendment, and provides no recourse for the state of Georgia’s inevitable privacy violations. Under HB-614, your name, address, and date of birth will go into an electronic database every time you purchase certain over-the-counter nostrums like Claritan-D or Sudafed, as well as each time you fill a prescription for most pain relievers, anti-anxiety drugs, or sleep aids. HB-614 allows the Georgia Drugs and Narcotics Agency to go on fishing expeditions through the database when it is updated on a weekly basis. It is expected HB-614 would have a chilling effect on physicians’ willingness to prescribe the covered drugs, leaving thousands of Georgians without adequate relief of chronic pain, anxiety, or insomnia. There are dozens of other smaller reasons why this is a bad bill, and absolutely nothing to recommend it. The Libertarian Party of Georgia urges you to tell your state Representative to vote “NO” on HB-614.
(You can review this bill online at http://www.legis.ga.gov/legis/2009_10/sum/hb614.htm)
Well, I am glad you did! I wish I had been more aware of it before today and I would have drummed up some more opposition to it. This really does cross all political lines. I have conservative friends who are also very much against this bill. If it does pass the senate, maybe we can put enough pressure on Sonny to do something right for a change
Wait, I thought the conservative view of the Constitution is that there is no “right” to privacy? So, this bill is in line with that philosophy.
10 points of off-Peach Pundit points go to heroV.
That is the federal government, I am pretty sure the State Constitution pretty much spells out a right to privacy. As the article above noted:
“In King v. State, the Georgia Supreme Court reiterated that “In this state, privacy is considered a fundamental constitutional right and is ‘recognized as having a value so essential to individual liberty in our society that [its] infringement merits careful scrutiny by the courts.’” It also noted that “[p]ermitting the State unlimited access to medical records for the purposes of prosecuting the patient would have the highly oppressive effect of chilling the decision of any and all Georgians to seek medical treatment.””
On a positive not, SB169 is DOA:
http://www.ugaliberal.com You will have to scroll down a bit as I’m keeping HB164 on top right now.
The Fourth Amendment to the Constitution spells out a right to privacy:
The “conservative” position has been that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t exist or doesn’t mean what it say it means. So much for originalism.
The irony of this bill is if Rush lived in a state with this bill would he be doing time?
Did Rush Limbaugh Get Off Easy in OxyContin Case?
…..Prosecutors alleged that Limbaugh obtained prescriptions from multiple doctors for the highly addictive drug OxyContin. That drug is sometimes called “hillbilly heroin” because of its powerful nature and widespread use in rural areas.
In a prepared statement Friday, Black said Limbaugh did not engage in doctor shopping. The statement also said that Limbaugh has remained clean since participating in the 2003 treatment.
Under the deal to put the charge in abeyance, Limbaugh agreed to participate in a pretrial diversion program. It is designed for first-time drug offenders, Edmondson said.
The program places terms and conditions on defendants in order to have charges dropped. As part of the deal, Limbaugh must submit to drug tests and continue his drug rehabilitation program with Dr. Steven Strumwasser. He is also forbidden from possessing a firearm or weapon during the 18 months.
In Palm Beach County, Edmondson said, drug offenders do not face incarceration unless they’ve failed opportunities to deal with their addiction and have turned to crime to maintain their drug habit.
Limbaugh “got what’s fair,” said Fred Haddad, a Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorney. “That’s what they should do for all first-time offenders.” Haddad said it helped Limbaugh that he had entered treatment voluntarily in 2003 before any charges were filed.
Gerald Lefcourt, a New York-based attorney and the former president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, agreed that Limbaugh got a pretty common deal for first-time drug offenders.
The irony in this case, he said, is that Limbaugh long advocated tough punishment of drug offenders. In 1995, he famously said that drug users “ought to be accused and they ought to be convicted and they ought to be sent up.”
“It would be a shame if he got what he advocates for everybody else,” Lefcourt said.
Experts said Limbaugh probably got a good deal for several reasons.
Lefcourt said low-income drug users generally sell drugs or commit other crimes to finance their drug habit, while Limbaugh could afford to pay thousands of dollars for his drugs.
Limbaugh also could afford a top defense attorney who was able go on the offensive, said Ricardo Bascuas, a University of Miami criminal law professor and a former assistant federal public defender in Miami……
http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1146487050585
This bill is a good bill.
Too many people shop for doctors and bring their prescriptions to multiple pharmacies to be filled and avoid the 1 month supply rules.
Pye is a moron who does not know what he is talking about on this issue.
This is not a matter of privacy. Come time that this law is passed, administering it will not require immediate knowledge of a persons full name. The patients last name and birthdate are all that will be necessary.
Furthermore, I hope the rest of you know that prescription drug abuse is the #1 drug addiction in the US. The supply comes from people like say…Rush Limbaugh, who go to multiple doctors and bring their prescriptions to different pharmacies. Then they end up with a years supply every month…but unlike Rush, they don’t eat all of it. Most people sell what they do not need.
Pye, learn about an issue beforing defaming a bill. This is important.
Also, robitussen does not contain codiene.
This will be simple and cheap and is excellent fiscal and social policy.
I disagree whole heartedly with this bill and with your assessment of it. If they want to monitor meds, they should do it on the level of the doctor, not the patient. They would monitor the doctor to see if he is prescribing massive amounts of these drugs. They can do this without the needs of getting into patient medical records.
Thanks for the insults. You really heightened the level of debate here.
Furthermore, I hope the rest of you know that prescription drug abuse is the #1 drug addiction in the US.
Actually, it’s not. It’s #2, behind marijuana and we see how well that war is going.
Marijuana is not a drug. That is a different debate.
Jason…did you merely post that to cause a ruckus?
UGALiberal, monitoring a doctor is one thing. Patients, more often that doctors, are the ones taking advantage of the system. Competing pharmacies do not have a centralized prescription database that informs them that controlled substance A was just prescribed to Patient X at such and such drug store two hours ago. In all likelihood a system as such will never exist.
None of that changes the fact that I, a super senior citizen, can go to 10 different doctors and be prescribed oxycontin and xanax in high dosages for ailments that I only pretend to have…then go to 10 different pharmacies and fill the prescriptions under the radar and without getting any doctors in legal trouble.
What then? well, I can sell the oxycontin at $1-$3 per milligram ($20-$60 per pill for a low dose oxycontin) to high school or college students. Heck, the lonely house wife nextdoor is probably looking for a new hobby.
I have no need for the money…but this is a recession now. Several seniors do need the cash and it is not too difficult to feign such problems to acquire certain drugs.
“Heck, the lonely house wife nextdoor is probably looking for a new hobby.”
Hey there buddy, now you’re venturing into my turf. Back off.
Far be it for an Alabama guy to agree with a Georgia guy but Jason is right. Our right to privacy is under attack and this bill needs to be opposed. Overall the Obama budget has several items that will start to erode our rights and change the principles our country was founded on if we do not stand up and let our voices be heard. I would agree that we do not want people getting the same drug from multiple sources to distribute in a criminal manner but to continue allowing the government intrusion into our lives and privacy is not the answer. A gentleman by the name of Gerry Purcell who is running for the Georgia Insurance Commission in 2010 has great insight into this topic and health care overall. He is a dynamic speaker with real vision and answers to complex issues. I encourage you to look him up and attend one of his speeches.
Goldwater Conservative
You are a very intelligent guy who at times I do not agree with like this issue. Please tell me why you think criminalizing drug abuse has ever helped the problem? In fact one could make a very logical argument it has made the problem worse while creating many more over crowded jails, gangs, violent crime……….
Doctors for years have prescribed drugs like valium for people who have abused them, but how does making it a crime help?
John,
How do you know GC is a “guy?”
Can anyone else verify Purcell?
Goldwater Conservative,
You really confused me at first, but then I got the joke. You’re just saying the opposite of Barry Goldwater would say. I guess I just didn’t get the memo that today is backwards-day. What a fun game! You are so funny!
Rick Day,
Don’t give them any ideas! Next thing you know, they’ll have an alcohol database. “I’m sorry sir, you may not purchase any more alcohol at this time. It has been only 14 days since your last purchase. You must wait 15 days!”
After all, that’d be for the “good” of “society”, right? Make sure all those unruly citizens know their role.
I don’t think drugs should be illegal.
I think selling illicit drugs should be…until these drugs are made legal and the “dealer” becomes a licensed retailer, then the laws need to be upheld.
I agree, victimless crimes (ie drugs, gambling, prositution, etc) are bad policy. They should be decriminalized and taxed just like every other service and/or product (where applicable).
I think, given the current political/legal environment, this is the right way to go. Until all of these victimless crimes are overturned, which will never happen with the current regimes in Atlanta, DC and every other state capitol…we need to address certain problems. This is one of them.
It is time to abandon one of the worst domestic policy blunders in American history…Reagan’s Drug War. Demand will never go down. Fighting the supply side is absolutely idiotic.
Until we decide that we will change course in this area of public policy, providing law enforcement with the tools necessary in order to enforce current laws is the only constitutional route. Sabatoging policy is wasteful; and, if it is desirable, the policy should be repealed.
Furthermore, it is really no secret in DC that Goldwater despised Reagan.
He thought, and I still do, that Reagan was weak and stupid. He cuts taxes and deregulated until we went into a recession, because of his wife he backed a multi-trillion dollar plan to fight drug abuse and he courted the evangelicals. Some conservative. He was truely the first president that thought what happens in your bedroom is everybody else’s business.
Regarding drugs, Barry and I always disagreed on one thing. I still believe the Federal gov’t should tax drugs at the same level it taxes gasoline and tobacco. I have no problem repealing the taxes once the deficit is paid off (which will be long after I die), but until then we need to utilize as many revenue sources as we can.
I can say, and will say, that where Senator Goldwater and I agreed with the Drug War garbage was that it is not the gov’t’s job, at any level, to try and sabatoge public policy. The GOP has tried and failed with Social Security and Education…and it is deplorable. If a policy is bad and is popularly believed to be bad, then repeal it…don’t try to make it fail by placing unreachable restraints and funding restrictions on the programs/policies.
I would also suggest you check out Senate Bill 56 which passed out of the House Non Civil Judiciary committee this morning…Yet another monitoring bill but this time they are monitoring citizens who buy OTC cold products such as Sudafed.
Pathetic
GC
You intellect is truly dizzying.
Let’s see if I’ve got it.
You believe we should not only add to bad policy with more bad policy, but we should fund it and increase it’s funding whenever and however possible…. And we should do all these things until such time as we no longer do them… which btw, will happen after you die or never, so therefore, right now let’s continue to think up new bad policies and implement them and raise more taxes to pay for them, fore down deep, you really could care less (ok, the last part was my opinion, but it fits).
Correct?
Guess it’s time to edit my “what’s not taxed?” bumper sticker to add, “what’s not monitored?”
“There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live—did live, from habit that became instinct—in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.”
Mr. Adams,
You kind of get what I am getting at. I don’t think extra funding should necessarily be attached all the time, but all of the tools should be provided…so long as they are court approved. That does not necessarily mean attaching more money to a program.
You are right about one thing, on many of these issues…I could care less. Partly because I will be dead before anything significant is done, but also because I don’t care what the law says. I care about how voters come to their conclusions about who to vote for and a few other things…but for the most part, none of these policies actually affect me as a person or anybody in my family.
I have extreme flexibility in my ability to relocate. I really like Georgia. It is beautiful, but so is Martinique or even Santa Barbara County. Money is not a problem for me…so it is not as if I am stuck somewhere because of my job or because I can not afford to move to a different city, state, or country. Even on issues I do care about…regardless of how a legislative body votes on it, it will not affect my life. I don’t need Sunday alcohol sales…it is impossible to drink all of the booze in my house within a month. I do not need the economic stimulus or unemployment insurance or tax cuts or public school standards.
There are two Americas. There is the one that a very small percentage of people buy and the other is the public. I want what is best for my country and my people. Plain and simple. I did my part and my generation is leaving the rest to next generations. We had our wars, we paid off our debts, we raised taxes and cut spending when necessary, now it is your generations turn.
You guys are off to a rocky start. (I am not certain how old you are Daniel, so I may not be talking about your generation necessarily…you might be of my grandchildren’s generation, in which case I would kindly ask you to scold your parents for being so reckless). This is America…adversity will be overcome, but only if the country can come together for a common cause with a common purpose. Partisanship has never solved any of America’s problems.
There will always be a demand for drugs and always a supply. The government has failed miserably at decreasing either and should start trying.
or…change the course. Isn’t that what you do in a war that you are losing…change direction?
Like our European colleagues, we need to decriminalize these drugs, regulate them, tax them and create addiction treatment programs.
All in all, both socially and fiscally, this route is much more sound. Regulating the drugs will ensure that distributors are selling a safer product. Taxing them will create revenue. Addiction to these substances is not a good thing, and decriminalization coupled with treatment should inevitably lower the demand and lower the costs of imprisoning these repeat offenders.
There is probably no need to go into all of the specifics regarding the benefits of legalizing drugs.
http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/24/miron.legalization.drugs/index.html?iref=newssearch
This article sums most of it up nicely.
Regardless of all of this talk, this bill was a good one and it fell victim to the greed of pharmecutical giants who do not want their profit margins to sink because laws start getting enforced.
WoW! Kasim Reed voted no on the bill, and Shafer voted yes. Does this mean that Kasim Reed is more conservative on privacy rights than David Shafer?
Apparently so.
Sad that those federal dollar $igns $eem to blind them to the point they can’t see the Constitutional Rights infringement when it’s right there in front of them.
How is this a violation of privacy rights? for one.
Secondly, since when do you guys care? Remember the Patriot Act? How about Roe v Wade? Now…if you are not a fan of the 14th Amendment (for whatever reasons) you really have no foot to stand on.
Enforcement of this law, and investigation of suspects, does not require the knowledge of anybody’s name. Like all gov’t records, the use of numbers will be attached to individuals. Social Security numbers are the likly “reference” numbers, but different numbers can be used fir various security concerns.
Simply having an electronic record of what drugs are being dispensed and in what quantities over an interval of time (all of these, for those that are unfamiliar, have lawfully regulated quantities and intervals of refill) for the database of reference numbers would allow a simple computer program to quickly identify people that are abusing the system and are shopping around. The total costs…a new computer program and electronic medical records (which has been a proposed project for a decade).
Simply having electronic medical records available for pharmacists and other doctors would in itself reduce these crimes. The state would simply be able to punish pharmacists and doctors for knowing filling illegal prescriptions.
Again, this is not an infringement on privacy rights. Keep an individual’s identity out of the picture and have assigned reference numbers…that is a court tested administrative method that saves everybody time in court.
Goldwater Conservative
If a housewife is on valium do you really care? If Rush is taking OxyContin do you care? And what should be the punishment? Are we not creating more problems than we are solving?
I was alarmed when I heard this bill debated on the House floor. I passed out fliers at the Madison Forum meeting the next day including this atrocity in the list of atrocities- and it was a long list!
Do we really want a Lt. Gov. that sponsors this kind of big brother crap?
John Konop–I’ve returned in a twilight zone. You and I agree on this issue. Very strange.
The war on drugs is a sham. 80% of arrests last year in the War on Drugs was for possession.
Marijuana sure beats alcohol in terms of what you want the guy next door using. Marijuana driving- yeah, you never hear about that, because a person smoking weed doesn’t care enough about anything to get in a car and drive there.
With bills like HR 614 and then the Drivers License bill HB 396 (which was tabled in the Senate yesterday)- combine those, and someone can have their drivers license suspended because they’ve been prescribed vicodin for a couple years.
I was diagnosed with shingles last year– and it was too late for treatment with antibiotics. So the only thing the doctors could do for me was to prescribe vicodin and neurintin to try to manage my pain. Were it not for my friend who is an UNLICENSED herbalist (remember that 110 pg. atrocity of a medical bill the House passed on crossover requiring all this licensing for fringe medicine?)– I could have been on those drugs for a year or more. Fortunately, my friend who has more real life experience actually curing people, I was able to get the pain levels under control using certain vitamins, herbs, etc. (and bat livers, but that may be too gruesome for this crowd. Non-genetically modified bat livers, in the event that you ask, Bill).
The Georgia House and Senate is totally out of control. Boo these people at the District Conventions, and pass out fliers letting the delegates know what kind of garbage is going on.
The arbiters of tyranny have a southern drawl, y’all.
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