John Brumment - Private parts become public parts

Seems that Senator Denny Altes wants the Arkansas state government to monitor your drug usage, he’s touting a bill that will require your Pharmacist to report to the state, to be kept on a state computer if you are prescribed any drugs on Altes’ “list”. Too bad Viagra is not on that list, the we could have been guaranteed this bill wouldn’t have even made it out of committee. I don’t know about you, but we have got too much “big brother” in our lives already, and having the State of Arkansas monitoring what my doctor prescribes is a very frightening thing.

The bill would designate a group of prescription drugs and require that your pharmacist, whenever you get a doctor’s prescription filled for one of the medicines in the group, turn in your name and the drug to the state Health Department. The state agency would put this information in a database and look for patterns in usage, and, whenever it deemed the action advisable, notify the police.

The affected medicines would include pain-killers like OxyContin and Tylenol with codeine, anti-anxiety medications and testosterone supplements. The idea is to catch those who are doctor-shopping and abusing these substances, either for personal use or black market resale.

The reality is that all of us would have our medical privacy, supposedly protected by other federal laws, invaded.