Recently, the State Senate approved legislation to create a database of patients taking prescription drugs. The idea is to give doctors tools to see if the same patients is getting prescriptions from multiple doctors and abusing prescription medication. Sounds like a good idea, right?
The good idea turns creepy when we find that District Attorneys and police will also have access to the database.
Prescription drug database bill sent to governor
HARRISBURG, Pa. (WHTM) –
The Pennsylvania Senate has sent Governor Tom Corbett legislation to set up a new monitoring program to prevent prescription drug abuse.
Senate Bill 1180 is designed to prevent so called “doctor shopping,” where people visit different doctors to receive multiple prescriptions for pain pills and other highly-addictive drugs.
If enacted, the legislation authored by Sen. Pat Vance (R-Cumberland/York) would give physicians access to a database where they can see which controlled substances have been recently prescribed to their patients.
There is a already a growing problem with law enforcement targeting innocent people and charging them with DUI.
Here is an example of how this happens:
A lady contacted our office recently after she had been charged with a DUI. She was worried and confused because she had not been drinking. An officer who had pulled her over for drunk driving had seen her prescription bottle in her purse when she was pulling out her license. She was charged for a DUI for those prescription pills. The problem is she was not intoxicated and was taking the pills within her doctor’s orders. She was just charged because the police could charge her. This is a woman who has a high paying career, no criminal record, has never been arrested and is now scared about losing everything. We get clients like this every week.
So now we are giving police more tools to hunt down fabricated “criminal activity”?
Justin McShane
PA DUI attorney Justin J. McShane is the President/CEO of The McShane Firm, LLC - Pennsylvania's top criminal law and DUI law firm. He is the highest rated DUI attorney in PA as rated by Avvo.com. Justin McShane is a double Board certified attorney. He is the first and so far the only Pennsylvania attorney to achieve American Bar Association recognized board certification in DUI defense from the National College for DUI Defense, Inc. He is also a Board Certified Criminal Trial Advocate by the National Board of Trial Advocacy, a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Approved Agency.