ACLU might be fighting a losing battle on this one. Sarah Gillooly writes:
America’s opioid epidemic is a grave public health issue, one that experts and a growing national consensus say we need to approach with solutions based in science and treatment. Unfortunately, some lawmakers haven’t gotten the memo and want to continue with the failed and inhumane strategies of the past: harsher penalties, overcriminalization, and the erosion of people’s rights.
The latest example comes from North Carolina. A new proposal ostensibly aimed at combatting the opioid crisis would give local law enforcement sweeping, unprecedented power to look through a person’s entire history of prescription drug use if they are under investigation for any drug crime, even possessing a tiny amount of any controlled substance.
Read more on ACLU.org. Thanks to Joe Cadillic for sending in this link.
I recently had the pleasure of reading a draft article by Anne Boustead, who has been looking into the use of, and access to, prescription monitoring programs. I’m not sure it’s accurate to characterize the North Carolina proposal as “unprecedented,” as there appears to be a lot of precedent for law enforcement or agencies being able to access history and records without any warrant.