Your prescriptions aren't private

If you think your prescriptions are a private matter between yourself, your health-care provider, and your pharmacist ... you're wrong.


Exclusive investigation: Your prescriptions aren't private - Story Longform:
(August 29, 2016)

“I could have lost my family, I could have lost my career,” said Marlon Jones, an assistant fire chief with the Unified Fire Authority of Salt Lake County, Utah. Jones says he was falsely charged with felonies related to doctor shopping as a result of a warrantless search by local police in Cottonwood Heights.

Investigators were looking into the theft of prescription drugs from area ambulances. With no suspects, no probable cause and no warrant, a police officer working the case logged into Utah’s controlled substance database and searched the prescription drug records for all 480 fire department employees. “I had no idea that a police officer, just on a whim, could go into my medical records and then determine what’s appropriate, in his opinion,” recounted Ryan Pyle, a fellow firefighter paramedic whose prescription records got swept up in the same warrantless search.

There are situations where other health-care providers need to know your medical history, and what prescription drugs you have been taking; this is a separate issue from law-enforcement people using your medical history in an attempt to find someone ... anyone! ... to prosecute.

There's no solution to this problem, except that if you discover that law enforcement officers have access to your medical history, and they intend to use that history to prosecute you, then you should raise holy hell.

If the police use your prescription history against you in court, your lawyer should move that any information attained by this illegal access should not be admissible in court.

We've talked about privacy issues again.  This is just another way in which well-meaning officials can use medical information against you.

Felons are exempt from the laws which require people to declare ownership of firearms, which felons are legally forbidden to possess.  This is a similar violation of the Fifth Amendment .. if not actually, then at least potentially.   See HAYNES V UNITED STATES which protects felons from prosecution from self-incrimination if they fail to register a gun which they are not legally allowed to own!