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Sheriffs

Sheriffs want database of prescription drug users

Tuesday, September 14, 2010
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...)
Tags: sheriffs, drug database, health news


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(NaturalNews) Sheriffs in North Carolina are petitioning state legislators to be given access to the database of patients who are in possession of powerful prescription painkillers and other controlled substances. The state sheriff's association fronted the idea last week, saying it would help them make more arrests of people who illegally sell prescription narcotics (painkillers), almost all of which are acquired through doctor prescriptions of FDA-approved drugs.

Astonishingly, almost 30 percent of North Carolina residents received a controlled substance prescription drug this year alone. That means the sheriff's drug database, if granted, would give law enforcement details of the medication habits of 3 out of every 10 residents in the state.

The database has records of over 50 million prescriptions covering 375 million doses of powerful, dangerous pharmaceuticals.

Big Pharma flooding the streets with dangerous narcotics and amphetamines

For starters, that this situation exists at all should raise concern about the widespread use of dangerous pharmaceuticals by the medical industry. If these drugs are so addictively dangerous that sheriffs want to track them down, why are tens of millions of people being put on these drugs in the first place?

That's not to say that powerful painkillers aren't appropriate in some extreme circumstances, but Americans seem to be drowning in these drugs. Clearly, something amiss in the doctor's office.

It's not difficult to know what that is, either: Many doctors receive kickbacks (essentially bribes) from drug companies when they prescribe more pharmaceuticals to patients. Some of the more clever doctors say they're "enrolling patients in a clinical trial" even when the whole point of the clinical trial is to just get a large number of people taking more drugs, after which the doctor receives a check from the drug company for running the so-called trial.

The medical industry is flooding our streets with dangerous narcotics, even as they claim to be against illegal drugs, some of which are based on the very same chemical molecules found in prescription drugs. Street drugs like speed, for example, are now prescribed as ADHD amphetamines, and they're commonly abused by today's college students.

These obvious contradictions in drug policy tend to confuse kids and teens in particular, who are told on one hand "don't take drugs" but then on the other hand "unless they come in an orange prescription bottle." Meanwhile, a significant majority of parents are also abusing prescription drugs, relying on highly addictive chemicals to sleep, to wake up, to adjust their moods, to reduce pain and so on. So when kids see their parents popping pills just to function, the message is very clear: It's okay to use chemicals to get through the day.

Big Government in your medicine cabinet

The second concerning issue here is the idea that Big Government is interested in tracking what's in your medicine cabinet. In this case, however, it's not the feds; it's more like "local Big Brother" in the form of sheriffs.

Now, I happen to have a lot of respect for local sheriffs, and I know quite a few who are working hard to fight crime, usually with very little funding and almost ridiculously little support from legislators. Local sheriffs are constantly battling problems with meth production and abuse, and now they're also fighting against prescription drug abuse. They are under-funded, under-appreciated and under-staffed.

So it's no surprise that they're looking for new tools that could help them save time in trying to crack down (heh heh, literally) on community drug abuse.

The question is: Should the privacy of patients take precedence over the law enforcement needs of local sheriffs?

In other words: Does local law enforcement have the right to know what's in your medicine cabinet... even if that information could help them track down genuine drug abusers?

From one point of view, this might have a benefit because it could allow sheriffs to query the database after a car accident, for example, and determine if the driver might have been taking mind-altering prescription drugs. The "driving while medicated" epidemic is a huge problem in America today, and it is vastly under-recognized.

But there's also a huge opportunity for any prescription drug database to be abused by law enforcement. Medications that people are taking might be used against them in court, for example, and in those rare cases where a rogue sheriff employee is actually one of the bad guys, this data could be used to break into peoples' homes and steal their valuable narcotic medications. A rogue sheriff employee could even sell this information to gangs would do the breaking and entering for them. (I'm not saying this is common, but there are, after all, some bad apples in every branch of law enforcement.)

Beyond all that, most people are justifiably uncomfortable with the idea of the government knowing what prescription medications they take. But truth be told, the new health care reforms put in place by the Obama administration already mandate much the same thing. The deeper government gets involved in health care, the less medical privacy anyone has.

Get Big Brother out of health care

I prefer government to get its hands off my health care altogether. I don't want Big Brother tracking my meds (well, I don't take any meds, but you know what I mean), tracking my health statistics and running my health insurance programs.

I don't even want states to tell me that I can't see an N.D. and have to go see an M.D. because those are the only people who are "licensed" in that state. This monopolistic power over accepted health treatments has traditionally been used to squash competing health therapies (like naturopathy or chiropractic) while reinforcing dangerous medical monopolies that mostly peddle poisons or surgeries.

I think patients should have both their privacy and their freedoms -- and this includes the freedom to know the truth about how natural foods, supplements and remedies can both prevent and reverse serious disease (https://www.naturalnews.com/029698_censorship...).

I also strongly disagree with the current law enforcement policies that criminalize drug addicts and throw them in prison rather than helping them get off those drugs and create a better life for themselves. The War On Drugs has been a complete failure and a massive waste of taxpayer funds, and I'm concerned that if we allow sheriffs to start tracking the medication habits of everyday citizens, we're only going to end up with more people been thrown into the prison system when what they really need is holistic medicine that can wean them off dangerous drug addictions.

So I oppose turning over prescription medication records to sheriff's offices, but for more reasons than just the "privacy" argument (although that's a legitimate argument all by itself).

What do you think? Post your comments here or on our Facebook page to join the discussion.

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About the author:Mike Adams (aka the "Health Ranger") is a best selling author (#1 best selling science book on Amazon.com) and a globally recognized scientific researcher in clean foods. He serves as the founding editor of NaturalNews.com and the lab science director of an internationally accredited (ISO 17025) analytical laboratory known as CWC Labs. There, he was awarded a Certificate of Excellence for achieving extremely high accuracy in the analysis of toxic elements in unknown water samples using ICP-MS instrumentation. Adams is also highly proficient in running liquid chromatography, ion chromatography and mass spectrometry time-of-flight analytical instrumentation.

Adams is a person of color whose ancestors include Africans and Native American Indians. He's also of Native American heritage, which he credits as inspiring his "Health Ranger" passion for protecting life and nature against the destruction caused by chemicals, heavy metals and other forms of pollution.

Adams is the founder and publisher of the open source science journal Natural Science Journal, the author of numerous peer-reviewed science papers published by the journal, and the author of the world's first book that published ICP-MS heavy metals analysis results for foods, dietary supplements, pet food, spices and fast food. The book is entitled Food Forensics and is published by BenBella Books.

In his laboratory research, Adams has made numerous food safety breakthroughs such as revealing rice protein products imported from Asia to be contaminated with toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium and tungsten. Adams was the first food science researcher to document high levels of tungsten in superfoods. He also discovered over 11 ppm lead in imported mangosteen powder, and led an industry-wide voluntary agreement to limit heavy metals in rice protein products.

In addition to his lab work, Adams is also the (non-paid) executive director of the non-profit Consumer Wellness Center (CWC), an organization that redirects 100% of its donations receipts to grant programs that teach children and women how to grow their own food or vastly improve their nutrition. Through the non-profit CWC, Adams also launched Nutrition Rescue, a program that donates essential vitamins to people in need. Click here to see some of the CWC success stories.

With a background in science and software technology, Adams is the original founder of the email newsletter technology company known as Arial Software. Using his technical experience combined with his love for natural health, Adams developed and deployed the content management system currently driving NaturalNews.com. He also engineered the high-level statistical algorithms that power SCIENCE.naturalnews.com, a massive research resource featuring over 10 million scientific studies.

Adams is well known for his incredibly popular consumer activism video blowing the lid on fake blueberries used throughout the food supply. He has also exposed "strange fibers" found in Chicken McNuggets, fake academic credentials of so-called health "gurus," dangerous "detox" products imported as battery acid and sold for oral consumption, fake acai berry scams, the California raw milk raids, the vaccine research fraud revealed by industry whistleblowers and many other topics.

Adams has also helped defend the rights of home gardeners and protect the medical freedom rights of parents. Adams is widely recognized to have made a remarkable global impact on issues like GMOs, vaccines, nutrition therapies, human consciousness.

In addition to his activism, Adams is an accomplished musician who has released over a dozen popular songs covering a variety of activism topics.

Click here to read a more detailed bio on Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, at HealthRanger.com.

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