Utah bill would prevent law enforcement from abusing substance abuse database

http://www.cachevalleydaily.com/politics/article_21c64776-b3ed-11e4-b3b6-5bd21f5bd591.html

Republican Senator Todd Weiler of Woods Cross has a bill before the Utah Legislature that would create a new substance abuse control database. On KVNU’s For the People program Thursday, Weiler said the state has had a database in place for 19 years.

When it was created, then-governor Mike Leavitt expressed the fear that it would be abused and Weiler said it has definitely been abused. He said if you go to your doctor for a prescription for oxycotin or other controlled substance your prescription goes into this database.

Your doctor can check it to make sure you are not doctor-shopping and also law enforcement can check it and that’s where abuse has come in.

“We’ve had incident after incident of abuse,” Weiler explained. “I’m basically running a bill to say that law enforcement would have to go to court and show probable cause in order to look inside your electronic medicine cabinet, which is the same standard they would have to do to look inside your actual medicine cabinet.”

Weiler said that the adjustment to the law protects people’s privacy and holds law enforcement to the same standards they would need to go through for any other type of search. But Weiler’s bill does emphasize the need

Filed under: General Problems