New labeling rules now in effect for all CBD oil sold in Indiana

https://www.wthr.com/article/new-labeling-rules-now-effect-all-cbd-oil-sold-indiana

INDIANAPOLIS (WTHR) – The Indiana General Assembly legalized CBD oil in March, but additional rules take effect this week that impact anyone who buys or sells the product.

The rules – intended to help both consumers and law enforcement – impose new labeling requirements on all CBD products sold in Indiana, and those who break the law could face stiff penalties. A day after the new rules took effect, WTHR found many CBD distributors and retailers are now scrambling to meet the state’s mandatory CBD labeling regulation.

A worker at Fresh Thyme attaches a new QR code label on a jar of CBD oil to ensure it complies with new Indiana law.

“We’ve been planning for this, and we think overall it’s good thing,” said Josh Hendrix, a spokesman for CV Sciences, which produces one of the most popular brands of CBD oil now sold in Indiana. “We’ve sent everybody tags to put on their current inventory, so as of July 1st, these [products] will continue to be legal in the state of Indiana.”

CV Sciences and other CBD oil manufacturers are now adding QR codes (a type of scannable barcode that contains specific information about a product) to their CBD oil products to meet labeling requirements outlined in Senate Enrolled Act 52, the bill that legalizes CBD oil for all Hoosiers. Once scanned with a smartphone, the QR codes must direct consumers to detailed information about each CBD product, including its batch number, expiration date, ingredients and an independent lab analysis.

Lawmakers included the labeling rules to help consumers, retailers and regulators determine whether each CBD product sold in Indiana contains acceptable levels of THC, a psychoactive compound found in cannabis plants that, in high amounts, can trigger a “high.” Both CBD oil and marijuana come from cannabis. But unlike marijuana which contains elevated levels of THC, CBD oil comes from a type of cannabis called industrial hemp that has little or no THC and causes no high. State law now allows CBD products with up to .3% THC.

New QR codes on CBD oil link directly to lab results showing the levels of CBD and THC in each product sold in Indiana.

“The QR code is going to show you every single test result of every batch,” Hendrix said, demonstrating by using his smartphone to scan a QR code on a bottle of Plus CBD Oil capsules. “These are the lab results and you can see how much THC, how much CBD, the heavy metals testing and all of the pesticides testing. From the field to the shelf, it’s all there,” he said.

Hendrix met with WTHR at a Fresh Thyme grocery store near Greenwood – the same store where Indiana State Excise Police set off a yearlong controversy last July when its officers confiscated thousands of dollars in CBD products and cited the retailer with “possession of marijuana.”

• MORE: Indiana Excise Police dismiss “ridiculous” marijuana citations against dozens of stores

After WTHR exposed the raid at Fresh Thyme and at dozens of other stores across the state, Indiana’s attorney general announced that he believed CBD oil products were, in fact, illegal under state and federal law. At the direction of Gov. Eric Holcomb, state lawmakers passed SEA 52 to change that, and excise police dismissed all of the citations. At the same time, the Indiana General Assembly included strict labeling requirements to discourage abuses by those who might try to sell products with high levels of THC that come from marijuana.

Thousands of Hoosiers say they rely on CBD oil to help reduce their chronic pain, seizures, anxiety, depression and other medical conditions without the need for addictive opioid medications. CBD vape oil is a term that generally refers to any vape juice that contains CBD, as opposed to nicotine. It is really a misnomer considering that it doesn’t actually contain any oil. It would be more accurately referred to as CBD vape juice or CBD e-liquid. A CBD vape pen is a pen-shaped vaporizer used for vaping CBD e-juice. We’ve broken them down into two categories: refillable and disposable. Refillable CBD Vape Pen come in various styles, but most are relatively discreet. Disposable vapes, on the other hand, are a convenient and cheap way to start vaping CBD right away.

CBD oil has no known negative side effects.

Some products now complying, some do not

Tuesday morning, Eyewitness News found stores like Fresh Thyme, Georgetown Market, and CBD Health of Indiana are selling CBD products that are properly labeled with newly-mandated QR codes.

Businesses that do not meet the rules can be fined up to $10,000 and lose their retail license. That’s why some retailers have decided to pull noncompliant items off their shelves. Georgetown Market has removed one brand of CBD oil liquid and dozens of cans of CBD oil soda to its storage room because the products’ manufacturers have not yet provided proper labeling.

“We want to make sure we’re following the law. We have plenty of products that do meet the rules and have the QR codes, so we’re just setting aside the few that don’t,” said Georgetown Market owner Rick Monteith.

A storage room at Georgetown Market holds CBD oil products that lack QR codes while only properly-labeled products are on store shelves.

Tuesday afternoon, a spokesman from Fresh Thyme said its Indiana store managers would also stop selling products that do not comply with the new rules.

“We are working with our Indiana stores to pull the hemp-derived CBD products that are not in compliance with the new label laws. Once the QR codes come in for these products, we plan to put them back on the shelf,” said Jonathan Lawrence, the company’s director of vitamins and body care.

But a day after the new rules took effect, 13 Investigates found other local retailers selling CBD oil without updated labels. Some said the labels were scheduled to arrive Tuesday afternoon. Some store clerks said they were unsure if all of their manufacturers planned to comply with the new law, forcing them to find new CBD suppliers and new cannabis software at https://www.blaze.me/ to keep up with high demand.

Other manufacturers, like CV Sciences, are using Indiana’s new law as incentive to change the labels on their products nationwide.

“We did if for Indiana, but eventually all of our labels will have the QR code on it … making sure the consumers and retailers know they’re getting quality products,” Hendrix said.

The state’s Alcohol and Tobacco Commission, which oversees Indiana State Excise Police, is largely responsible for enforcing Indiana’s CBD law. The agency suggested it may not issue fines to businesses that are found to be violating the new labeling requirements immediately after they take effect.

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“Should Excise see any products that are not in compliance with the law, they will work with retailers on education of the new requirements,” said ATC communications director Lindsay Hyer.

The new law does not establish penalties for purchasing CBD oil that does not meet the labeling rules. But after July 1, Indiana consumers may want to be wary of CBD oil products that do not have a proper QR code and labeling information,so they can get the right products at the NanocraftCBD Sale online.

While the manufacturers of those products may simply not be aware of the new labeling law, it is also possible that they are choosing not to follow the new labeling rules because their products contain more than .3% THC. Those products are considered illegal in Indiana and, under current Indiana law, anyone who possesses them can face criminal charges.

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Sugary drinks linked to 25,000 deaths in the U.S. each year

http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-sugary-soda-death-toll-20150629-story.html

By contributing to obesity and, through that, to diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer, the consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks appears to claim the lives of about 25,000 American adults yearly and is linked worldwide to the deaths of 180,000 each year, new research says.
Removing chocolate milk from schools caused plain milk to be wasted
Removing chocolate milk from schools caused plain milk to be wasted

Low- and middle-income countries are bearing the brunt of the death toll attributed to overconsumption of sugar-sweetened sodas, sports drinks and fruit drinks, according to an assessment published Monday in the American Heart Assn.’s journal, Circulation. Each year, more than 3 in 4 of the world’s deaths attributed to overconsumption of sugar-sweetened beverages occur in those poor and developing countries.

In Mexico — a country with one of the world’s highest per-capita consumption of sweetened drinks — about 24,000 adults’ deaths in 2010 were attributed to overconsumption of sugar-sweetened drinks. That translated into the highest death rate of the world’s 20 most populous nations: 405 deaths per million adults in one year.
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The United States ranked second. In 2010, there were 125 deaths per million adults, or about 25,000 deaths total.

To generate those estimates of sugary beverages’ health toll, researchers combed through national dietary surveys that captured patterns of beverage consumption in 51 countries from 1980 to 2010. The researchers then mined resource databases to discern the availability and consumption of sugar in 187 countries.

They tallied consumption of drinks, homemade and mass-produced, that deliver 50 calories or more per 8-ounce serving, and did not count 100% fruit juices.
Americans consume too much added sugars, study says, and it’s killing us
Americans consume too much added sugars, study says, and it’s killing us

They drew from a growing mountain of studies to estimate the contribution of sugar-sweetened beverage consumption to obesity, and of obesity to such diseases as Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancers of the breast, colon, esophagus, gall bladder, kidney, pancreas and ovaries. And finally, they calculated how many deaths from those diseases might have gotten a push from consumption of those sugary drinks.

The result is the first-ever global report on the effect of sugar-sweetened beverages on death rates.
cComments

@rrosencrantzz (z) Completely groundless, “mountain-out-of-a-molehill” fears just like John Hillman expresses.
Resident Boomer
at 8:07 AM July 01, 2015

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As incomes grow in many developing nations, some are experiencing spurts in obesity that mirror, in compressed form, Americans’ four-decade run-up in weight. Many researchers attribute those patterns, at least in part, to increases in their populations’ consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, which add calories without improving nutrition.
Fake sweeteners may mess with the way our bodies metabolize sugar
Fake sweeteners may mess with the way our bodies metabolize sugar

“This is not complicated,” said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of Tuft University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy and a senior author of the new research. “There are no health benefits from sugar-sweetened beverages, and the potential impact of reducing consumption is saving tens of thousands of deaths each year.”

The comprehensive report on sugary beverages and death does not reflect the effect of such consumption on the health of children. It does find chronic disease attributed to sugar-sweetened beverages more common in younger adults than in their elders. That fact is likely to have a major effect on future economies because it imperils the long-term productivity of a key group of workers.

If these young people continue to guzzle sugar-sweetened beverages at their current rate, said study coauthor Gitanjali Singh, the consequences could be dire. Compounded by the effects of aging, this generation’s high rates of sugary drink consumption may push its rates of death and disability from heart disease and diabetes even higher than those seen in the current study, said Singh, also of Friedman School.

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Doctors prescribing most potent painkillers face scrutiny

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/12/15/doctors-prescription-painkillers/20428639/

More data mining and using “raw data” to uncover who the “bad prescribers” are..  No matter how many “top 20 prescribers” they take out.. there will always be a “top 20″…  It is like digging a hole in the sand at the edge of the ocean.. it keeps filling back up. The judicial system only cares about drug abuse.. if legit pts get denied care… because of their action(s)…. collateral damage is not any of their concern.

IMO… this plainly explains the mindset:

Aggarwal’s Medicare prescribing history had plenty of red flags, more than 80% of his Medicare patients received at least one prescription for a Schedule 2 drug, in many cases oxycodone.

Can you imagine a pain specialists with 80% of the pts getting a opiate ?

Doctors who are the most prolific prescribers of powerful narcotic painkillers and stimulants often have worrisome records, a ProPublica analysis of Medicare data shows.

In 2012, 12 of Medicare’s top 20 prescribers of drugs such as oxycodone, fentanyl, morphine and Ritalin have faced disciplinary actions by their state medical boards or criminal charges related to their medical practices, and another had documents seized from his office by federal agents. These drugs have a high potential for abuse and are classified as Schedule 2 controlled substances by the Drug Enforcement Administration.

The No. 1 prescriber Shelinder Aggarwal of Huntsville, Ala., with more than 14,000 Schedule 2 prescriptions in 2012 — had his controlled-substances certificate suspended by the state medical board in March 2013. He surrendered his medical license four months later. (Aggarwal could not be reached for comment.)

Prescribing high volumes of Schedule 2 drugs can indicate a doctor is running a pill mill, said Andrew Kolodny, chief medical officer of Phoenix House, a New York-based drug treatment provider. “We wait ’till these doctors kill people … It doesn’t make any sense,” said Kolodny, founder of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing, which advocates for tighter regulation of painkillers.

Ky hot spot for Medicare narcotics prescribers

 Medicare’s drug program, known as Part D, now covers about 38 million seniors and disabled people and pays for more than one of every four prescriptions dispensed in this country. Concerns about oversight of controlled substances date back to at least 2011, when the Government Accountability Office highlighted abuse of opioids in Part D and called on Medicare to take action.

Within the past year, Medicare has started to use prescribing data to identify potentially problematic doctors, as have some state medical boards. Beginning in mid-2015, Medicare will have the authority to kick doctors out of the program if they prescribe in abusive ways.

“It’s a real area of concern for us,” said Shantanu Agrawal, a physician who is director of the Center for Program Integrity within the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The 2012 data shows the upward trend line for prescriptions of controlled substances before these initiatives took hold as USA TODAY reported in Peter Eisler’s June 2014 story,

Aggarwal’s Medicare prescribing history had plenty of red flags. The pain-medicine specialist has consistently shown up in Medicare’s data as a top prescriber of narcotics. By 2012, the year before he stopped practicing, more than 80% of his Medicare patients received at least one prescription for a Schedule 2 drug, in many cases oxycodone.

It took a complaint from pharmacies near Aggarwal’s office to alert the Alabama Board of Medical Examiners to his unusual prescribing habits, said Larry Dixon, the board’s executive director. Board investigators subsequently made undercover visits to the doctor’s office and videotaped him prescribing drugs without an exam.

“If you paid $1,200 in cash, they would put a VIP stamp on your medical records and you didn’t ever have to have an appointment,” Dixon said.

Medicare’s Part D data draws a roadmap to the doctors who prescribe controlled substances most frequently.

In 2012, 269 providers wrote at least 3,000 prescriptions for Schedule 2 drugs, ProPublica’s analysis shows. They were concentrated in a handful of states. Florida led the country with 52 providers, followed by Tennessee with 25. (Look up your doctor using our Prescriber Checkup tool.)

About one in five doctors who wrote at least 3,000 prescriptions for Schedule 2 drugs have faced some kind of sanction or investigation, ProPublica found. Because of their risk of abuse and dependence, these drugs require written prescriptions and cannot be refilled.

In September, Medicare sent 760 letters to doctors who prescribed far more Schedule 2 drugs than others in their medical specialty and state. Officials hope the initiative will cause doctors to examine their prescribing and make changes.

“Simply being an outlier doesn’t establish that you’re doing something wrong,” said CMS’ Agrawal. “What we are trying to do is give physicians the ability to assess themselves, given their comparative data.”

Medicare also has sent information on 71 prescribers for possible investigation to the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and on one doctor to a state medical board.

Some medical licensing boards are also expanding their efforts to use data to spot problematic prescribing. North Carolina’s medical board has proposed new regulations allowing the agency that runs the state’s prescription drug monitoring program to share data with the board. The board currently can only access the data when it is pursuing an active investigation into a particular physician.

Similarly, Alabama’s Legislature recently authorized its medical board to regulate pain medicine clinics and proactively access data from its prescription monitoring database.

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If you can imagine this.. this pt is on Medicaid and “locked in” to a specific pharmacy – can only get her Rxs filled at this one particular pharmacy location and the Pharmacist on duty refused to fill her prescription.. Forcing the pt to go to a pharmacy where she had to pay cash for her medically necessary medications.  And the pt had been trying for TWO WEEKS to get herself locked in a different pharmacy and “the Medicaid system” was apparently not responding to her request.

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Intractable Pain Act repealed, but battle against prescription drug abuse goes on

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Suit: Woman with Crohn’s disease denied bathroom access at two area businesses

http://www.wlsam.com/2015/06/30/suit-woman-with-crohns-disease-denied-bathroom-access-at-two-area-businesses/

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Drug cops took a college kid’s savings and now 13 police departments want a cut

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/06/30/drug-cops-took-a-college-kids-life-savings-and-now-13-police-departments-want-a-cut/

In February 2014, Drug Enforcement Administration task force officers at Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport seized $11,000 in cash from 24-year-old college student Charles Clarke. They didn’t find any guns, drugs or contraband on him. But, according to an affidavit filled out by one of the agents, the task force officers reasoned that the cash was the proceeds of drug trafficking, because Clarke was traveling on a recently-purchased one-way ticket, he was unable to provide documentation for where the money came from, and his checked baggage had an odor of marijuana. (He was a marijuana smoker.)

Clarke’s cash, which says he he spent five years saving up, was seized under civil asset forfeiture, where cops are able to take cash and property from people who are never convicted of — and in some cases, never even charged with — a crime. The DEA maintains that asset forfeiture is an important crime-fighting tool: “By attacking the financial infrastructure of drug trafficking organizations world-wide, DEA has disrupted and dismantled major drug trafficking organizations and their supply chains, thereby improving national security and increasing the quality of life for the American public.”

But the practice has become contentious, in part because agencies are generally allowed to keep a share of the cash and property they seize. In cases like Clarke’s, where local and federal agents cooperate on a seizure, federal agencies typically keep at least 20 percent of the assets, while local cops split the remainder among themselves. Critics argue that this creates a profit motive and leads to “policing for profit.”

[Stop and seize: Aggressive police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists not charged with crimes]

Two local agencies were involved in the seizure of Clarke’s cash: the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport Police, and the Covington Police Department, which is the home office of the DEA task force officer who detained and spoke with Clarke. But according to the Institute for Justice, a nonprofit civil liberties group now representing Clarke in court, 11 additional law enforcement agencies — who were not involved in Clarke’s case at all — have also requested a share of Clarke’s cash under the federal asset forfeiture program. They include the Kentucky State Police, the Ohio Highway Patrol, and even the Bureau of Criminal Investigations within the Ohio Attorney General’s office.

 These numbers all come from an Institute for Justice review of the Justice Department’s Consolidated Asset Tracking System, the federal asset forfeiture database. The airport police have requested the lion’s share of Charles Clarke’s $11,000, at 40 percent. The Cincinnati Police Dept. has requested an additional 6.14 percent of it, with the rest of the agencies requesting 3.07 percent each. That all adds up to just under 80 percent, which by law is the maximum amount local agencies are allowed to receive in cases like this.

Civil asset forfeiture exists, in part, to compensate law enforcement agencies for their crime-fighting efforts. The Controlled Substances Act states that forfeited property handed over to local law enforcement should have “a value that bears a reasonable relationship to the degree of direct participation of the State or local agency in the law enforcement effort resulting in the forfeiture, taking into account the total value of all property forfeited and the total law enforcement effort as a whole.”

But there have been a series of high-profile controversies over civil asset forfeiture lately, and the practice has drawn increasing scrutiny from lawmakers. Just recently, three Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to the acting head of the Drug Enforcement Administration expressing concern over a recent forfeiture case involving a young man, Joseph Rivers, who had $16,000 seized at an Amtrak stop in New Mexico. The letter describes the circumstances of the seizure as “disturbing,” particularly Rivers’ contention that he was racially profiled as the only black person on that part of the train.

Like Joseph Rivers, Charles Clarke is a young black man. And like Rivers, he lost his cash at a so-called “cold consent” encounter — that is, a warrantless search voluntarily agreed to — at one of the nation’s transportation hubs. Clarke didn’t have any marijuana on him or in his baggage, so he hasn’t been charged with any drug crimes.  He was charged with resisting arrest and assaulting an officer, however, after he tried to prevent the agents from seizing his money by yelling at them and struggling with the agents when they grabbed the cash, according to the agent’s affidavit. The charges were subsequently dropped, according to his lawyers at the Institute for Justice.

[Why the TSA posted a photo of a passenger’s cash-filled luggage on Twitter]

So why are 11 agencies that were not involved with the forfeiture of Clarke’s cash requesting a cut of it? The most likely reason, according to Darpana Sheth, the lead attorney representing Charles Clarke, is that they all participate in the same DEA drug task force that’s home to the officer who made the seizure. Jill Del Greco, a public information officer with the Ohio Attorney General’s office, confirmed that their Bureau of Criminal Investigations has an agent on that task force, but that they “weren’t directly involved” with the Charles Clarke case. She referred additional questions to the DEA, who oversees the task force.

Brian Steffen, assistant Chief of the Covington Police Department which is home to the task force agent who made the seizure, also referred questions about the nature of the task force to the DEA. “Wherever [the task force] conducts its operations is at the discretion of the DEA,” he said. A representative for the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport similarly referred inquires about the task force to the DEA.

The DEA’s Cincinnati office, home to the task force, wouldn’t comment on the case or answer questions about the task force. Rich Isaacson, a public information officer with the Detroit DEA office, would only say that “we are bound by the rules and regulations of the asset forfeiture section of the Department of Justice. We don’t comment on pending litigation and pending investigations.”

The Justice Department’s Guide to Equitable Sharing describes how asset forfeiture funds are typically handled in cases overseen by a drug task force: “Many task forces involving federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies have pre-arranged, written equitable sharing agreements based upon relative numbers of personnel and other contributions to the task force operation.” It states that these agreements will only be honored when “the pre-arranged percentages continue to reflect the true overall agency contributions to the task force.”

But in Charles Clarke’s case, agencies stand to receive payouts even though they had nothing to do with the seizure. “Law enforcement agencies are just scrambling to get a cut of the money and it has nothing to do with legitimate law enforcement incentives,” said Clarke’s attorney Darpana Sheth. “It’s more about policing for profit.” The small amounts that most agencies requested — just a few hundred dollars — represent what Sheth calls the “pettiness” of much of civil asset forfeiture. “It’s really just the money, its not anything else that’s driving the request,” she said.

And over time, these payouts can add up. The Institute for Justice provided numbers from their analysis of Department of Justice forfeiture data on the cash value of seizures at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport (CVG) from 2000 to 2013. Those number show seizure amounts spiking sharply in recent years, even as overall passenger volume has dropped precipitously.

According to the Federal Aviation Administration, passenger departures at CVG have dropped by about 75 percent since 2005, from a high of roughly 11 million down to fewer than 3 million in 2013. Over the same time, the total amount of cash seized at the airport has increased more than sixteen-fold, from $147,000 to $3 million in 2012. So in stepping up their seizure efforts, authorities at the airport are squeezing more cash out of fewer passengers.

In some ways, this increase mirrors the overall rise in asset forfeitures seen around the country in recent years. And it’s worth reiterating that this is all above-board and perfectly legal. But for critics, that’s precisely the problem. And their efforts are starting to bear fruit: Congress has been holding hearings on the issue. Senator Rand Paul has introduced legislation that would remove some of the profit motive from asset forfeiture practices.

But until such reforms pass, people like Charles Clarke will have to work within the current forfeiture system, which allows law enforcement officers to seize property first under the presumption of guilt. The title of the federal government’s lawsuit perfectly encapsulates the odd situation that forfeiture defendants find themselves in: “United States of America v. $11,000 in United States Currency and Charles L. Clarke, II.”

His case is currently making its way through federal court.

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Government action on the nation’s heroin problem

http://www.carolinalive.com/news/story.aspx?id=1225079#.VZXXZEaui1w

(SBG) — A new report that shows despite a major increase in seizures of heroin, the government simply can’t keep up with the growing demand.

Like so many of this country’s challenges, the foundation of this one is money.

The price of heroin dropped immensely from nearly $3,000 per gram in the early 80’s to under $500 now.

And it comes as no surprise then the number of people who have died as a result of heroin saw a 172 percent increase since 2010.

Heroin seizures by the DEA have also gone up by 80 percent.

“We need to keep going after those big fish, those large scale criminal networks, drug trafficking organizations that are trying to get their product into the United States,” said DEA Spokesman Rusty Payne.

But he says they can’t always tackle the other side of this equation.

“If we don’t get our arms around the demand for these drugs, these bad guys aren’t going away. If there’ a demand they’re going to find a way. The money is just too good,” he said.

Research shows the money is good because the market has expanded.  

The DEA says heroin is no longer just a street drug, but is often used by soccer moms, doctors, lawyers and those who never thought they’d go near heroin.

An addict who did not want to reveal her identity said she became addicted to painkillers after an accident in which she broke her ribs.  When the pills ran out, she turned to heroin.

“I tried it, it grabbed a hold of me really bad. And the next thing I know I have to have it all the time.”

New legislation has now been introduced on both sides of Congress addressing the issue of heroin and other drugs, with the goal of prevention and education, as well as enforcement.

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Utah Medical Privacy Bill Receives Pushback from DEA

http://healthitsecurity.com/news/utah-medical-privacy-bill-receives-pushback-from-dea

A medical privacy bill went into effect in Utah earlier this year, requiring police agencies to get a warrant from a judge before searching the state’s controlled-substance database. However, the US Drug Enforcement Administration may sue Utah over the restricted access.

DEA investigator Robert Churchwell sent a subpoena for information to state database administrator Marvin Sims, according to The Salt Lake Tribune. The subpoena demanded that Sims provide contact information and a full prescription history for the target of a DEA investigation.

Assistant Attorney General David Wolf refused the request, saying that Sims would have been committing a felony.

As reported earlier this year by HealthITSecurity.com, S.B. 119 requires law enforcement to use a search warrant to gain database information related to a controlled substance investigation. The legislation also requires that officers specify the individual who they are searching.

“Any person who knowingly and intentionally releases any information in the database or any information obtained from other state or federal prescription monitoring programs by means of the database in violation of the limitations under Part 3, Access, is guilty of a third degree felony,” the bill states. “ Any person who negligently or recklessly releases any information in the database or any information obtained from other state or federal prescription monitoring programs by means of the database in violation of the limitations under Title 58, Chapter 37f, Part 3, Access, is guilty of a class C misdemeanor.”

Wolf added that without a valid search warrant, Sims did not have to comply with the request.

Utah Senator Todd Weiler sponsored the bill back in February, and said that the recent pushback is very disappointing. Specifically, Weiler said it is upsetting that the federal government believes that it is exempt from the 4th Amendment, which prohibits unreasonable searches.

The bill also allows those whose information is in the database to obtain a list of individuals who have had access to their data, except when the information is subject to an investigation. Individuals who are in the database can also ask that the division give them their records in the controlled substance system.

”I think it’s disgusting that this is what it’s come to, that the federal government thinks they have a right to see whatever they want and the 4th Amendment means nothing,” Weiler told the news source.  

The controlled substance database was created 19 years ago, and when individuals have their name and prescription entered into the database when they receive a prescription for a controlled substance, such as oxycontin or morphine. Weiler said in February that while the main purpose of the database was for doctors and pharmacists to ensure patients aren’t “prescription shopping,” lawmakers knew at the time that the database could potentially be abused without further legislation.

Assistant Supervising Agent in Charge of the Salt Lake City office of the DEA Nicki Hollmann told the Tribune that having to get a subpoena would “significantly hamper” the agency’s mission. Specifically, Utah is ranked fifth in the nation for drug overdoses, which is something that the DEA hopes to address.

Weiler counters that argument though, saying that a state judge can electronically issue a subpoena within just a few hours.

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http://pubsys.miamiherald.com/static/media/projects/2015/license-to-launder/doral.html

Bal Harbour police exposed a vast network of businesses, many in the Doral area, that were used by drug cartels and other criminal groups to launder millions. In the end, no one was ever charged.

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