DEA Pursues Vast Expansion of Patient Surveillance
This is an odd proposal.<p>Most importantly: we need to start treating drug addiction, and long term pain, as the public health emergencies they are and we need to stop criminalising drug addicts.<p>&gt; Diversion investigations involve, but are not limited to, practitioners and mid-level practitioners who write prescriptions for no legitimate medical need and&#x2F;or outside the scope of legitimate medical practice, or sell prescriptions to drug dealers or abusers; pharmacists who falsify records and subsequently sell or abuse the drugs; pharmacists who fill prescriptions that they knew or should have known were illegitimate; employees who steal from inventory and falsify records to cover illicit sales; prescription forgers; and individuals who commit armed robbery of
pharmacies and drug distributors<p>The US does massively over-prescribe opioids. There have been doctors who were careless in who they prescribed to. There have been &quot;pill mills&quot; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;2019&#x2F;oct&#x2F;02&#x2F;opioids-west-virginia-pill-mills-pharmacies" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;us-news&#x2F;2019&#x2F;oct&#x2F;02&#x2F;opioids-west...</a><p>But they don&#x27;t need patient ID to track that down. They can use supplier data.<p>I&#x27;m also struggling to read the document. It&#x27;s written in a specific, jargon heavy, way. Use of the word &quot;subpoena&quot; every time they mention patient data is a little bit reassuring, but it&#x27;s still not great.<p>&gt; CLIN 2001 Unlimited access to patient de-identified data, to be identified via subpoena, for class 2 to 5 prescription data which includes pharmacy, medical, and dental data. Fixed price per license per month<p>I&#x27;m still ploughing through the 60 pages to try to get my head around it.