HARRISBURG PATRIOT-NEWS Op Ed: …Since September, three bills have been introduced in Harrisburg designed to expand the commonwealth’s own prescription monitoring system by establishing a database listing all prescriptions of controlled medications and the identities of the citizens who receive them…
These include not only narcotic painkillers like hydrocodone, oxycodone and morphine, but drugs like Ritalin and Adderall that are used to treat childhood ADHD.
Reggie Shuford, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania, put it best when he said: “The privacy of the child who breaks his arm on his bike or who takes attention deficit medication is being sacrificed because someone across town is abusing these substances.” … (more)
This guy has a strange perspective IMO. Although I agree that maintaining a drug database while dismantling a gun database is stupid, I really don’t see the big deal about the drug data base. Is he afraid someone is going to break into your house to steal Ritalin?
In my mind public knowledge about what prescriptions one takes is not nearly as stigmatizing as being labeled a gun nut.
EDITOR: Do we want prospective employers and their research bureaus to check the list to gauge health conditions of applicants? Might colleges and universities do the same?
In the case of JFK, it would have been illuminating.