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DEA Argues Oregonians Have No Protected Privacy Interest In Prescription Records
schwit1 writes "Like emails and documents stored in the cloud, your prescription medical records may have a tenuous right to privacy. In response to a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) over the privacy of certain medical records, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is arguing (ACLU response) that citizens whose medical records are handed over to a pharmacy — or any other third-party — have 'no expectation of privacy' for that information."
Oregon mandates that pharmacies report information on people receiving certain drugs to a centralized database (ostensibly to "...help people work with their health care providers and pharmacists to know what medications are best for them."). State law does allow law enforcement to access the records, but only with a warrant. The DEA, however, thinks that, because the program is public, a citizen is knowingly disclosing that information to a third party thus losing all of their privacy rights (since you can always just opt out of receiving medical care) thanks to the Controlled Substances Act. The ACLU and medical professionals (PDF) don't think there's anything voluntary about receiving medical treatment, and that medical ethics override other concerns.
You've lost sight of your own Constitution and what you stand for.
Now you're a bunch of witless idiots cowering in the dark.
...has less respect for your privacy than Facebook, Apple, Google, or Microsoft.
Or, for that matter, the average spammer...
crack (they're on it, apparently)
Of these three-letter-agencies twisting the law to fit their needs. And, without any of the necessary oversight that we were promised.
So, I guess my question is, are things going to get better because we have a more aggressive flashlight for exposing these secret interpretations of our law, or, will this just keep getting worse until something significantly worse happens? Something like, Egypt, Syria, etc...
Revolutions are nothing new... I just wish they weren't so damned violent and terrifying.
"Helping to keep you two steps ahead of the Thought Police!"
DEA, meet HIPAA and HITECH.
...because I get all my meds from Canada, for a fraction of the price.
Fsck the USA and its Industrial-Pharmaceutical Complex.
It's like people don't trust the gov't to handle their information.
The DEA has become the enemy of the American people and needs to be disbanded, or at least have it's house cleaned.
"and that medical ethics override other concerns."
You have no rights, you have no freedom, you will be set aside, persecuted and made an example of unless you comply.
I'm puzzled; I'd think that this was covered by the Medical Records Privacy laws.
Personal information you give to your doctor is shared with insurance companies, pharmacies, researchers, and employers based on specific regulations.
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/index.html
https://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs8-med.htm
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
Their argument is pretty much the same as one of the arguments some have used to justify the TSA. You want to get on a plane? It's technically not necessary to do so, so us government thugs are justified in violating your rights. It's also not 100% necessary to live in certain cities or be in specific places at specific times, but these government thugs have never cared about anyone's rights, so they just do and say whatever they please to justify their own evil.
It's just another unconstitutional agency full of thugs. Problem solved.
I would expect this to get worse. As Obama care kicks in and the government demands more and more of our medical records they will begin to dig deeper and deeper. I am not looking forward to government bureaucrats deciding what is and is not needed for my medical conditions. That is for me and the doctor to decided, not the government.
Hmmm, let's see...if I'm being treated for a condition, any condition not involving an illegal act, and someone walks into my doctor's office and says "Give me Example Guy's current medical records", the first words out of my doctor's mouth will be "Show me your warrant or get out of my office."
So if the doctor prescribes medication to treat my medical condition, that comes under doctor-patient confidentiality. The ONLY people I have to share that information with are the pharmacy tech and pharmacy manager who do not share that information with anyone else outside that doctor's office.
So why do authority and police organizations think it's okay to grab my records at a whim because I'm taking, say, Ritalin to treat severe ADHD? They have no business or right to be pawing through peoples' records looking for criminals unless they serve a warrant to every physician involved. There is no condition under which legally prescribed medication falls outside of those parameters unless the patient himself gives said organization written authorization gained in a legal manner to search their own records.
So take your 'public disclosure' bull and stick it up your backside along with badge, Mr. Policeman. The rules apply to EVERYONE, not just the people who don't own their very own cheap tin badges.
"Courage is being afraid to do the Right Thing, and doing it anyway."
...a citizen is knowingly disclosing that information to a third party thus losing all of their privacy rights.
What's this "knowingly" bullshit?!
Look it, you know all that paperwork doctors' offices shove under your nose when you see them? I actually read that shit. And, there's only vague - very vague - verbiage stating how information may be shared with insurance companies for payment reasons and with other entities for our care. Nothing specific.
That's it.
But here's the fucking kicker, after helping out a doctor with an IT issue a few months ago, I found about this agency and what they are doing. I never heard about that.
The doc subscribes to it to make sure that his patients aren't doctor shopping, but never the less, it was the first I've heard about it.
HIPAA? Only applies to insurance companies.
And this day and age of the "War on Drugs", the politicization of everything, and a select minority of people out there who don't know when to keep their noses out of other people's business, keeping things private that should be private is a thing of the past, I'm afraid. The genie is out of the bottle.
Why would the DEA waste their time and money on this? HIPAA thoroughly establishes prescription records as being contained within the scope of medical privacy.
If the DEA argues that medical care is purely voluntary, rather than necessary, and thus 'choosing' it constitutes consent, would it be entirely ethical for medical professionals to refuse 'elective procedures' to all DEA functionaries? After all, the patient himself says that the procedure is totally voluntary, so I don't see why they have any professional or ethical obligation to assist with it, not when they could be treating people with actually urgent problems....
It's not the DEA that thinks that, it's 'SOMEONE' in the DEA. DEA is not a sentient being. Do you think every DEA official is happy that DEA wants to grab their drug prescription data without a warrant? Why? Why can't they/won't they get the warrant? It won't be rank and file DEA, it won't even be anyone normally part of DEA.
Do you really think rank and file DEA officials like lying in court? Risking criminal prosecution? Yet they are made to do that to cover for NSA tips/arrest orders.
I bet its just another top level decision, this time to grab medical records for the NSA's database, and push it as a DEA request. When in fact its above DEA.
Isn't this a direct violation of HIPAA?
But occasionally they DO actually go to bad for the right causes. This would be one of them. Considering Obamacare says we CAN'T opt out of insurance over medical care, we really can't opt out of medical care either thus making the DEA's response pure crap.
Step 1: Install license plate reader in cop cars.
Step 2: Get a database of everyone to their plates from the DMV
Step 3: Get a list of all drugs that you should not drive if you are on.
Step 4: Get a database of what drugs people are on.
Step 5: for every plate you see, check if they can be driving
Step 6: pull over anyone who fits the profile. If their picture matches,
Step 7: Issue tickets and jail time
Step 8: profit!
Am I the only one who read that title as "DEA Argues ORANGUTANS Have No Protected Privacy Interest In Prescription Records"? I was genuinely interested then thoroughly disappointed.
Ask a silly question...
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Or perhaps:
And if we can work our way around the Fourth and Fifth amendments, let's have at the First as well.
This is foolish and hopefully the laws will overturn it. If I could support only two bills this year, one would be a bill that would henceforth hold accountable corporate heads who engage in the sort of shenanigans that led to the recession. It would require jail-time. But if I could only support one bill, it would require jail-time for the heads of alphabet soup agencies whose policy decisions are found to violate the Constitution. A judge might yet throw this out, but if the people who make such decisions do not suffer they'll just try again in a different way. If he wishes to sit on the throne, let Damocles sit under the sword.
HPAA, from what I've seen, is taken pretty seriously. And the rules about what you can and can't disclose because of it are pretty strong. But how does this not flagrantly violate the protections it's supposed to offer? I'm not saying HPAA is perfect or implemented perfectly, but if you know what someone is taking, you know far more about them than if they simply see a doctor.
Seeing a general physician could mean you've got the flu, an infected cut, a torn muscle, or be the first step towards a cancer diagnosis. But if you're on Flexeril, you've probably got a muscle problem. If you're taking Enalapril, you've got a heart condition. If you're on Adderall, or Vicodin, or Cymbalta, you're being treated for ADD, pain, or depression. Some of those meds have off-label uses (Cymbalta is also used for fibromyalgia), but a quick check of Wikipedia against a script list will give you a darned good idea what someone is using a medication for.
2c
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
All they have to do is put a Business Associate Agreement in place and they satisfy HIPAA.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against ... ...and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized
How is this ambiguous?
Simple: Marijuana is federally illegal, even if it's not illegal at the state level, and this would give them proof that you were receiving it, allowing them to arrest you.
Good morning, Anonymous.
In an ongoing court case, the US Drug Enforcement Agency has argued that citizens have no "expectation of privacy" for any medical records that are ever provided to any third party.
You mission, should you choose to accept it, is to take them at their word. Find the medical records of as many of the following people as possible: members of the DEA, attorneys for the DEA in this case, and any judge at any level of the US judiciary who has ever ruled against citizens' privacy. Publish said records. After all, according to the DEA's own argument, they have no expectation of privacy. No harm, no foul.
Good luck, Anonymous. This posting will self-destruct in five seconds.
Off topic much? This is about the DEA and privacy concerns, not your misguided pro-obamacare stance.
Defund the DEA. We would literally save $billions on the actual DEA budget, and there would be knock-on effects in not having to turn cities into war zones combating something that's a public health problem. Take half the money we spend on DEA, and earmark it for addiction treatment under Obamacare. Drug problem solved (to the extent that it can be solved). DEA Agents? Don't worry. There are food stamps and Obamacare for you. We'll treat you well, and help you to find a new productive career; but if you throw a tantrum and hurt somebody we'll put you in the same corporate prison you put other people in.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
(Actualy, I think that everyone at the DEA needs to be let go, but that is a different political argument.)
This argument is so brain-dead and politically DOA that you have to wonder if something is not being mis-represented. However, if it is as the ACLU (generally a reliable source) relates, whoever is heading the DEA legal team is both dangerous and incompetent, and needs to go.
Get rid of them all! Billion saved! Hurray!
Repeat after me "the federal government does not have general police power". "The federal government does not have general police power".
See United States v. Dewitt, Employers' Liability Cases, Keller and the 10th amendment, which reads:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
"Find scam doctors" is not one of those delegated powers, which are listed in article 1, section 8.
This part of the filing on page was interesting:
The DEA is not required to obtain a court order based on probable cause to issue a subpoena or to have it enforced.
Fourth amendment, anyone?
Time and money mean nothing to them. Power means everything. If they try to grab this power and lose, nothing bad will happen. Sure they'll have wasted time and money, but that's the tax payers' stuff. Who cares, really? However, if they try this power grab and succeed, then they've got a shiny new weapon in the fight against drugs (where "fight against drugs" is a code name for "get more power for ourselves").
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
At least that would have the advantage of keeping people warm during the winter. We could cut the DEA, ship billions of "burning dollars" to homeless shelters (to burn, not spend) and still come out ahead.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
The DEA violated HIPPA repeatedly when they grabbed all the medical records of legitimate medical cannabis dispensaries. They are trying to preempt the lawsuit that is inevitably coming.
"since you can always just opt out of receiving medical care"
This creates a new meaning for "Over my dead body."
The DEA response with: OK!
Since you are dead they need to investigate it and boom they have your records.
means you have no expectation of privacy.
If the DEA wins, then surely Oregon's database (PDMP) is in violation of HIPAA, which means the database should be shut down, which means that there would no longer be any data for the DEA to collect.
So, great work DEA. Shut down a useful database.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Seriously.
Because fuck you, that's why.
... and damned if they don't.
Looks like they're going to be violating either a State law or a Federal law (or two) whatever they do.
The real ``fun'' begins when the pharmacies find themselves being sued left/right/every-which-way for violating HIPAA regulations when they choose incorrectly. (IMHO, the ``correctly'' choice is protecting patient privacy and not cowtowing to the snooping by the DEA.)
The so-called ``War On Drugs'' is the real problem here.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
The fact that the DEA would have the ability to scour rx records, this would mean that Oregon's medical marijuana program would, for lack of a better term, go up in smoke. A federal agency suddenly seizes records of thousands who are on OMMP, what do you think will happen?
This phrase is often used as a blind justification for wrong doping regardless if it is true or not. Yet when people hear it, they tend to believe the person that said it. Why?
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
I mean, this is exactly one of the things it's meant to address, as far as I know. I'm really confused as to how they think this argument is going to work.
don't think there's anything voluntary about receiving medical treatment
If the government can force someone to buy health insurance, I don't see the problem. Both involve government intrusion into one's personal life so if you were happy with people being forced to buy something they didn't want or need, there is no reason not to have the government accessing those records.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Why would the DEA waste their time and money on this? HIPAA thoroughly establishes prescription records as being contained within the scope of medical privacy.
That's not true, even though they mislead people to think it is.
Prescription records are covered by medical "privacy," which means that only people with a medical or administrative purpose can have access to those records.
But but law enforcement is one of those administrative purposes, and law enforcement has access to those records:
Covered entities may disclose protected health information to law enforcement officials for law enforcement purposes as required by law (including court orders, court-ordered warrants, subpoenas) and administrative requests; or to identify or locate a suspect, fugitive, material witness, or missing person. http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/understanding/summary/index.html
This is getting expensive...
The law is something the government creates, not follows.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
There's not much point to the 4th amendment if all the feds have to do to get around it is stomp a foot and ask a private business to hand over the information. This is becoming a huge loophole in consumer privacy. We need something explicit to keep feds from using businesses as an intermediary to our 4th amendment-protected records as well as the sleazy tactic of licensing businesses to database that information and open it up for queries.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Sorry, he is CEO of Amerika and policies put in place by his employees (or minions some would say) are his responsibility.
As a Pharmacist-anon lets be clear about what this really means.
Being a 'highly regulated industry' the government has a vested interest in protecting the public via inspections both state and federal. For example, prescriptions for narcotics are already sent daily to many state *SBoNDD (* state bureau of narcotics and dangerous drugs), my state is in the middle of a live update system to track scripts within a 5 minute window. The point being to track forged scripts. Often someone who forges a script will try to pass it at a pharmacy, fail/succeed, and then move on to the next pharmacy down the road to try again, especially if they have stolen a doctor's RX pad.
The other side is in-store/hospital forgery. There are at least two cases of techs in my state selling in excess of 3 million in drugs a year by clever manipulation of documents, much like money laundering. The DEA wants to see records of patients because they might not be real people. If your pharmacy is ordering huge volumes of Vicodin and 50% of your 'patients' have nothing but Vicodin scripts... well that needs to be sorted through by the DEA.
Generally speaking an officer can come into the pharmacy and request information, he may, though probably doesn't have a warrant. Here the Pharmacist is your advocate for privacy. "We believe Dr.Notappearinginthispost had his pad stolen, have you filled any of his Rx's lately?" The pharmacist runs a report and says "Yes, but they seem to be part of the regular fills from patients we've filled for before." At this point the officer might decide to get a warrant for specific information.
A DEA officer may show up with a notice an administrative inspection, or possibly a warrant. (The former allows them to come in during business hours, the later may allow them to break down the doors at night). Generally they will start with narcotic order records and work down to particular patients. However, if the DEA rather than the state agency shows up there is probably something very wrong on a very large scale. "States track bottles, the DEA tracks pallets."
In summary; HIPPA requires a pharmacy to protect Rx patient info, your pharmacist is your privacy advocate. However, it would be silly for them not to cooperate with investigation, and we already send records to the State. State laws vary, but mine essentially say only give officers what is directly necessary without a warrant (where a crime is suspected) and to exercise professional judgement.
To summarize the summary: we already ship your Rx records off to state agencies anyway.
"Just DO IT! If you are convicted of a crime I'll pardon you."
Because every access and update to the database would occur over private commercial telephone or network channels which the NSA has compromised for its own purposes, it can be assumed that they have a copy of the entire database.
If we infer that the NSA has the entire database we may infer that they and others are plumbing it for data on whom is buying and selling prescription drugs and in what volumes - searching for citizens with patterns of addiction as well as unlicensed dealers.
If we infer that they have been doing this for, let us say, a decade, then we may assume that rather than accept their liability, the organization is instead seeking to change the law so as to legitimize their violations of the laws they were sworn to protect, retroactively.
Have gnu, will travel.
Obamacare is an abomination, not for the reason that idiot libertarians beleive, but because it is basically just a corporatist handout to the medical insurance industry.
The only true solution to the issue of runaway shortsighted medical industry profiteering is true socialization of the industry.
I work in HealthCare technology and PHI is often transmitted to 3rd party vendors. Even EHR's are typically hosted by the vendor these days. Wouldn't that basically expose all Health Records to the DEA according to that logic?
Oh, is that so? Because it seems to me like that's a pretty awful generalization. There are plenty of us who are well aware of both of those things you've claimed we've all lost sight of. The problem is that there's not much we can reasonably do to remedy it. An individual might be able to make an impact... if he or she sacrifices his or her whole life to the cause. And even then, it's probably not going to make much of a difference, if any. I do what I can within reason; I vote Green at every election and make sure people around me know I think both major parties are, by and large, corrupt pigs. But anything past that, the cost/benefit ratio is going to become infinitesimally small. If you've got a suggestion about something that actually has a chance in hell of working that people can actually do to fight this, spit it out. Because telling us we've "lost sight of the constitution" isn't true and certainly isn't helping, and I have no idea why you're +4 insightful for it.
If you tell anything to somebody else it stops being private ?
well I guess we are back to "die gedanken sint frei" and nothing else ...
You do understand that the DEA enforces more than just marijuana laws, correct? This is a terrible argument, and it's modded insightful. For shame, /.. For Shame.
But lets take it to the side of the DEAs assumption about prescriptions. To use their logic any medical test a Doctor writes a prescription for then becomes "public". Baloney.
The DEAs only concern here is to circumvent and violate the Constitution to do anything they want without a warrant. They are as anti-American as terrorists and do far to many things without a warrant. Oh wait, that is what they are.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
A lot of it thanks to the internet circumventing traditional media and allowing the public to uprate stories that are important to them rather than having them lost under a pile of headline driving drivel.
Indeed, the Interstate Commerce Clause is one of the most abused sections of the Constitution. If something is grown and consumed locally, you and I might deny it has much to do with interstate commerce. Indeed, it would seem to be the very definition of intrastate commerce. But the sophists, er... sorry, the Constitutional lawyers will argue that growing drugs locally rather than buying them from other states will affect the markets in those other states. Since the activity has interstate effects it will be counted as interstate commerce.
So it's not just that an air molecule might cross the state border. It's also that by having air within the state borders, we have no vacuum within the state. Our lack of a vacuum in the state means that we will not draw on other state's supply of air, so affecting the air market in those states. We're in charge now...
Lest what I say seem to absurd, consider this from the font of all knowledge:
We needed one to ban Alcohol, was that previously separately protected somewhere in the constitution?
It's debatable. At the time, interstate commerce precedent had not been set to allow effective regulation of alcohol. We had not yet had cases establishing that intrastate commerce that has an impact on or a connection to interstate is covered by the interstate commerce clause. All Congress could do at the time was prohibit the sale of alcohol and not home-brewing.
This was, after all, an era of conservative activism in the court, and Commerce Clause cases at the time held the somewhat ridiculous opinion that broad categories of business like agriculture, mining, manufacturing, and electric generation simply weren't "commerce" and couldn't be regulated. Under that logic, Kidd v. Pearson, 128 U.S. 1 (1888) held that an Iowa law prohibiting the manufacture of alcohol was beyond Congress's ability to regulate, because it was "manufacture" and not "commerce." While this was a pro-dry ruling, it meant that any sort of national prohibition ran up against the wall that Congress simply couldn't ban the manufacture of a good.
Thus, the 18th Amendment.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
My fiance' has non-cataplectic narcolepsy. Every night she takes a drug called Xyrem to help her get normal restful sleep. This stuff is basically GHB & costs about $3000 a bottle which is thankfully subsidized by the manufacturer. During the day she takes Adderal, which is just another word for amphetamine salt. I really don't want just any Tom, Dick or Harry to know she has this stuff at her house.
posted anon cause duh.
If they could do anything useful with this database, it would be to stop drug seekers from having a dozen providers each filling scripts at different pharmacies. This happens all the time, and should be the simplest of all flags for narcotics etc. If they can't solve that problem, they must want the data for other purposes... Health insurance premiums maybe?
I am confused by the "No expectation of privacy" argument
This seems to be law enforcement's blank check work-around to the 4th amendment
Question:
If a company (let's say Verizon or CVS) were to include in their TOS a privacy guarantee, would that shoot down this line of reasoning, as consumers could reasonably expect privacy??
Does anyone know whether this has ever been addressed in court??
Maybe it's time consumers started demanding privacy clauses in service agreements
The DEA can pound sand. "No expectation of privacy?!" Who do they think they are?
You do not casually violate HIPPAA, the FDA, the Hippocratic Oath and the private medical affairs of 300 million+ people.
I get that they are the DEA and they have a mandate. They need to catch drug dealers and the like. However when the words "no expectation of privacy" escapes their dry, dessicated lawyers lips, they have seriously lost their way and need to be taken down a peg or three. Everyone connected with this sad initiative needs to be spanked and spanked hard.
Exactly. Their time means more money for them, and every penny they spend comes from someone else. Why in the hell would they care a whit about cost?
Obama's administration for 5 years now. Own it, moonbats!
One of the most fatal mistakes was giving the DEA (and their co-conspirator dumbass local cops) the power to seize cash and assets from kingpins (meaning: every corner boy, toothless meth head, AND THEIR ENTIRE FAMILIES) and give this lucre... to themselves.
The DEA is no different than their NSA brethren; they both see themselves far above the laws that apply only to the proles.
Roe v. Wade is allegedly based on a right to privacy in regards to medical decisions. I guess that only applies to aborting babies but for anything else it doesn't exist.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
They're already allowed to access them as a law enforcement agency. 45 CFR 164.512 (e) et al, (k)(2) et al. The DEA, as a component of the DoJ, is inherently a national security apparatus (q.v. DEA charter) and defined as an intelligence agency and member of the US Intelligence Community ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Intelligence_Community#Members ) per Executive Order 12333, signed by Reagan.
Short, uncited explanation: They don't need to bother with this, since they've already got numerous laws, orders, and such that allow them legal access. Barring this, they've got the SOD, which is essentially a paramilitary division, to enforce whatever they'd like to insist.
Yes, the DEA enforces more than just marijuana laws.
They enforce laws against opiates. This jacks up the price, and driving addicts to commit crimes to get a fix. This also decreases the quality and consistancy of the supply, killing people.
They enforce laws against cocaine, turning people towards more easily obtained, yet far more harmful stimulants like meth.
The enforce laws against psychedelics, depriving most of the country from one of the most awe inspiring, and still incredibly safe experiences life has to offer.
And to top it all off, they drive these industries underground, enriching violent cartels at great human cost.
The DEA serves no desirable purpose whatsoever. I challenge anyone to put forth a single well meaning, well informed argument for prohibition of any drug.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
citizens whose medical records are handed over to a pharmacy — or any other third-party — have 'no expectation of privacy' for that information.
So if I show my private bits to my wife (a third party), then as far as the DEA is concerned, they (and anyone else?) can look at my junk too?
It sounds like essentially they are saying that if you share anything with anyone else, then obviously you mean to share it with everyone else? WTF?!?
The US has argued that the private records of the rest of the world can be searched and divulged at will - why should americans suddenly expect to be treated differently?
This is not a signature.
I'd love to see all the drugs that everyone is on... where can I find this "publicly available" information?
There are, and this may be hard to understand, people who genuinely believe that the only way to remove drugs from the streets - regardless of proof to the contrary - is to make them illegal and put people in jail for them. These people believe that personal responsibility should be enough to keep people from doing drugs, and that if we make them legal, the problem will only get worse.
For proof of the fact that these people exist, and that they do not agree with your undergraduate statistics and crime course arguments, please consult anyone labeled 'officer'.
There are, and this may be hard to understand, people who genuinely believe that the only way to remove drugs from the streets - regardless of proof to the contrary - is to make them illegal and put people in jail for them.
Those people are, to put it lightly, pants on head retarded.
For proof of the fact that these people exist, and that they do not agree with your undergraduate statistics and crime course arguments, please consult anyone labeled 'officer'.
Oh, I'm quite sure they exist. Just as people who believe that throwing acid in a young girl's face is preferable to educating that girl. There's really no difference between the two.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
The Constitution clearly states that it's allow, deny. Starting in 1942, many politicians flout their oath to uphold the Constitution and pretend it's allow,deny.
I challenge anyone to put forth a single well meaning, well informed argument for prohibition of any drug.
The aqueducts?
I guess they're ignoring that whole ephi/covered entity thingy....
Oh, I'm quite sure they exist. Just as people who believe that throwing acid in a young girl's face is preferable to educating that girl. There's really no difference between the two.
Hyperbole is a terrible argumentative tool
Seriously, though, here are the arguments against what you said first, according to a highly educated young officer that I'm friends with:
They enforce laws against opiates. This jacks up the price, and driving addicts to commit crimes to get a fix. This also decreases the quality and consistancy of the supply, killing people.
"They don't have to do the drugs. An increased cost, and more danger would tell me that I should probably stop doing opiates. Addiction is no excuse for breaking the law. Also, saying that addicts HAVE to break the law to provide for their addiction is really only half of the argument. They have another option: getting clean."
They enforce laws against cocaine, turning people towards more easily obtained, yet far more harmful stimulants like meth.
"Those two things are VERY dissimilar in how they act in your body. That's a bad argument. Coke heads don't go to meth. They go to crack. Meth use and cocaine use are in entirely separate areas of the country at the micro-scale, and in entirely separate communities at the macro-scale."
The enforce laws against psychedelics, depriving most of the country from one of the most awe inspiring, and still incredibly safe experiences life has to offer.
"You could, you know, do something else awe inspiring. Ever seen the grand canyon? If your life is so boring that you MUST have psychedelics to enjoy it, you need to evaluate the choices you make."
Again, I'm the messenger for him, I just felt the need to rebut your argument from one of those "pants on head retarded" people you're talking about.
I didn't read the whole article, but it seems to be a controlled substance prescription database like the one we have in CT--I think we were one of the first states to do this. Prescribers and pharmacists are required to enroll, and information has to be reported to the State, by state law. That information is used to identify prescription drug abuse. We use it fairly regularly in the hospital I practice at when overdose patients arrive, or patients enrolled in a chemical dependency program . This doesn't violate HIPAA because the Act allows disclosure of information to a health oversight agency for oversight activities authorized by law.
Contrast that with Canada, where the provinces have regulations like Saskatchewan's Health Information Protection Act, that explicitly mandate the protection and security of medical records and prescriptions.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
People use and abuse these substances and go on to lead productive lives. From what Obama admits in his book, I'm guessing if he'd been caught he wouldn't have gone on to be President.
And yeah, some people always die, but you're going to die sooner or later. If that's how you want to go, who am I to stop you? Don't tell me they weren't capable of assessing the risk, either. Nothing in life is without risk. Eventually you screw up in assessing it adequately and then you die. For some of us it happens sooner (Whooops, didn't adequately assess the risk of jumping off the roof with that batman suit) for some later (Whoops, didn't adequately assess the risk of living until 97 on nothing but social security.) In the end, everyone dies.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
That is not hyperbole in the least. They are both examples of the exact same thought process in different contexts. Both are wanton cruelty justified by a twisted sense of morality. In both cases, the agressor believes that he is doing the right thing while harming individuals and his community.
If I'm wrong, what exactly is the difference?
This fails the "well meaning" test. Whether or not they have to use drugs, or can get clean is irrelevant. What matters is what policy yields the best public health outcomes. Prohibition has absolutely failed on this measure. It has no effect on rates of addiction, and makes addiction far more dangerous. Continuing prohibition in light of this fact is simply being cruel because "those people deserve it".
Also, consider that an islamist could use the same argument. "She didn't have to get an education/refuse the veil/drive a car/etc." This is just blaming the victim.
Oh, and "Addiction is no excuse for breaking the law." is begging the question. Presuming that opiates should be illegal because addicts should be punished for breaking the law is circular reasoning.
He's wrong in the first case, as you'd expect from a police officer lecturing about pharmacology. Cocaine and methamphetamine both act at the norepinephrine and dopamine transporters. Cocaine blocks reuptake, while methamphetamine runs the transporter in reverse. Both lead to extra neurotransmitter in the synapse of stimulatory/pleasure systems. The main pharmacological difference is that methamphetamine is metabolized much more slowly.
He's right in the second case, but the reasons for that are largely cultural and economic. If everything is equally available at reasonable prices, and people are educated properly, cocaine would likely displace a lot of meth use, leading to better public health. You'd also eliminate meth labs in one fell swoop.
As if nobody ever dies at the Grand Canyon? As if psychedelics that unlock corners of the mind and put us in touch with the closest thing to divinity that can be scientifically reproduced are not a natural wonder of the world, every bit as worthy of experiencing as the Grand Canyon? As if I couldn't say "If your life is so boring that you MUST see some giant hole in the ground, you need to
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Thanks to the goddamn DEA, the price of a month's worth of dextroamphetamine (for ADHD) has gone from almost being cheaper to buy for cash than most insurance copayments, to costing anywhere between $250 and $600 for 150x10mg, with yearly shortages that start to roll in around October, complete unavailability by early December that persists into March or April, and doesn't become readily-available (for 2-4 times last year's cost) until mid-June.
This is a drug that was generic before my DAD was in elementary school, and would cost a random, competitive generic pharmaceutical company who wasn't artificially constrained by the DEA literally PENNIES per tablet to manufacture (and in fact, cost about 25-30 cents/tablet without insurance just two years ago), vs the $1.66-$4/tablet it costs now.
This:
\http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/09/why-scandinavian-prisons-are-superior/279949/
The War on Drugs is costing the US it's cash, it's citizens' freedom and now our privacy. I am not for making drugs legal because drugs actually have the power to subvert the human will. In that sense, they're like an infectious virus that spreads amongst people in close contact and ultimately kills them. People on coke and meth have little to distinguish them from rabid dogs.
But OTOH the cost of criminalizing drugs instead of treating them as a disease is now threatening other values and priorities.
Enough is enough Let's deflate the prison population, retrain the people who work in prisons as counselors and social workers, re-purpose the money we now spend on prisons to rehabilitation, recovery, support and job training.
The ACLU and medical professionals don't think there's anything voluntary about receiving medical treatment, and that medical ethics override other concerns.
What about cases where the patient is under a doctor's care as the result of publicly visible, *voluntary* behaviors? I can't really feel solidarity with some overweight person who smokes complaining that her medical information is being disclosed to some third party. Unhealthy behavior should be discouraged, and a good way to do that is to punish these people in the pocket book by maintaining a database of people with unhealthy behaviors so that insurance companies can shift the risk of those unhealthy behaviors unto the shoulders of those that deserve it. Those of us who try to stay healthy should not have to bear the financial burden when some chain-smoking junk food junkie's coronary arteries eventually seize up and her lungs shut down. My insurance company created a tiered system where they charge smokers much higher premiums than they charge for non-smokers. Ditto for BMI. People who refuse to maintain reasonable height-weight proportionality should have to pay more for health insurance than the rest of us. I have to get swabbed and weighed once a month to prove I'm not smoking anymore and am maintaining a healthy weight, but it saves me over $2000 per year in premiums.
More to the point, I think I have the absolute right to determine *for myself* that the people I put trust in (teachers, bus drivers, cops, firemen, bankers, janitors, housekeepers) are not abusing the medications that have been prescribed to them -- a publicly accessible medical database would go a long way in making that possible.
You don't understand -- the prison industry is a growth industry fueled by owners like Dick Cheney, who aren't about to let one of their biggest "feeds" into their system become "legal". The US prison industry is one of the few that continues to grow despite[due to] budget cuts and bad economic conditions. It grows during good times, and grows even faster during bad times.
On top of this, there is the move toward privatization where profits can really be had as economies of scale increase and provided "benefits" are cut below ethical levels, but still passing "official" guidelines (which are set by those making money by cutting them).
It's also a way of creating a new "underclass". With racism coming under constant harassment, some women making more than men, children's work restricted, a new class of low-wage slave laborers is needed. Those with prison records get to face all sorts of legal discrimination in housing and employment. It's a ripe market for development!