Judge Rules Against the DEA in Prescription Drug Privacy Lawsuit

[phenethylo J]

The favorable ruling sought by the ACLU against the DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) in Oregon to impede the DEA's use of “administrative subpoenas” that override Oregon’s privacy guarantees was satisfying, but is likely to be challenged.

Said ACLU attorney Nathan Freed Wessler:

This is a victory for privacy and for the constitutional rights of anyone who ever gets drug prescriptions. The ruling recognizes that confidential medical records are entitled to the full protection of the Fourth Amendment.

The court rightly rejected the federal government’s extreme argument that patients give up their privacy rights by receiving medical treatment from doctors and pharmacists.

The suit, originally brought by Oregon’s prescription database program manager and four individuals, including a medical doctor, was later joined by the ACLU, which helped present, and win, the case against the DEA. In a tidy, succinct and well-reasoned decision, U.S. District Court Judge Ancer Haggerty saw the implications for violation of the plaintiff’s rights to privacy under the Fourth Amendment and ruled accordingly.

In September 2012, the DEA issued two “administrative subpoenas” demanding that Oregon’s database program — Oregon’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) — release information on an individual patient using prescription drugs and on two physicians who were prescribing them. PDMP turned the DEA away, claiming that Oregon’s laws on privacy preempted the DEA’s demand. PDMP then filed suit, joined later by the ALCU.

The judge was careful to note numerous similar (but not identical) cases and their rulings to inform his decision, including Katz v. United States, wherein the Supreme Court ruled that “searches conducted outside the judicial process, without prior approval by judge or magistrate, are per se [implicitly] unreasonable under the Fourth Amendment.” He also cited United States v. Ziegler, where the Supreme Court ruled that the Fourth Amendment “guards against searches and seizures of items or places in which a person has a reasonable expectation of privacy.”

The DEA countered with a “third party” argument, asserting that once an individual consents to give information to a third party, he gives up his Fourth Amendment rights to the security and privacy of that information. The judge tossed that argument:

It is clear from the record that each of the [plaintiffs] has a subjective expectation of privacy in his prescription information, as would nearly any person who has used prescription drugs.

Each has a medical condition treated by a Schedule II-IV drug and each considers that information private. Doctor James Roe also has a subjective expectation of privacy in his prescribing information….

By reviewing doctors' prescribing information, the DEA inserts itself into a decision that should ordinarily be left to the doctor and his or her patient.

Then the judge did something extraordinary. In defending the Fourth Amendment, Judge Haggerty invoked the Founders, including both the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, noting that many of them were physicians trained at the University of Edinburgh, “which required its graduates to sign an oath swearing to preserve patient confidentiality.” If they meant it then, they certainly mean it now.

Based on his review of arguments presented on both sides, Haggerty concluded:

[Plaintiffs’] subjective expectation of privacy in their prescription information is objectively reasonable. Although there is not an absolute right to privacy in prescription information, as patients must expect that physicians, pharmacists, and other medical personnel can and must access their records, it is more than reasonable for patients to believe that law enforcement agencies will not have unfettered access to their records
cont-

http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...-the-dea-in-prescription-drug-privacy-lawsuit

 

[neversickanymore]

There is a first.. the DEA loses. Oh wait the whole drug war thing.

THANK YOU ACLU!!!

 

[ro4eva]

This is fantastic news, and not just because I think the DEA shouldn't exist, much less insert themselves between a doctor-patient relationship, as they are once again crapping on the U.S. Constitution by doing so, as well as the fact that they are not experts in the field of medicine.

Far too many oppressive rules and regulations have resulted in an enormous amount of needless pain and suffering for patients. And of course, many of them will then resort to self-medication with black market opioids.

So is it willful ignorance, or are politicians really that stupid that they don't see this? That this is a direct consequence of the war on drugs?

The more they choose to squeeze, the more desperately those who are suffering will react. And make no mistake, they will succeed in finding something illegal without a government permission slip to temporarily numb their untreated/ignored pain - typically at exorbitant prices and impure, which is all the more reason for those of you elected officials whom it may directly concern to do something constructive about it for once, you disgraceful jackasses.

Furthermore, far too many oppressive rules and regulations have resulted in countless physicians across the country acting more like law enforcing bureaucrats than actual doctors of medicine. And the only time they stop acting that way - it seems - is when the patient no longer wishes to live. But even that is due to laws compelling them to act the part.

What a travesty western healthcare has become. And shame on our governments as well as their nations' respective mainstream media for doing this. Many of you deserve to be charged with war crimes for your participation in ruining non-violent, otherwise law abiding victims' lives because of a plant, powder, and/or pill. Hopefully their day of reckoning will come sooner than later.

 

['medicine cabinet']

as well as the fact that they are not experts in the field of medicine.



This.

 

[cj]

Fuck the DEA!

 

[LSDMDMA&AMP]

While theyre at it, get rid of controls on most precursors/glassware
i should be able to buy an oz of ephedrine if i want to.