Senate Bill No. 364
(By Senators Stollings, Jenkins, Tomblin (Mr. President), Unger,
Edgell, Foster, Laird, Plymale and Prezioso)
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[Introduced January 27, 2010; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §60A-9-5 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to permitting duly authorized
agents of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to inspect
certain confidential information concerning controlled
substances that is required to be kept by the State Board of
Pharmacy.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §60A-9-5 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as amended,
be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 9. CONTROLLED SUBSTANCES MONITORING.
§60A-9-5. Confidentiality; limited access to records; period of
retention; no civil liability for required reporting.
The information required by this article to be kept by the
State Board of Pharmacy is confidential and is open to inspection
only by inspectors and agents of the State Board of Pharmacy,
members of the West Virginia State Police expressly authorized by
the Superintendent of the West Virginia State Police to have access to the information, authorized agents of local law-enforcement
agencies as a member of a drug task force, authorized agents of the
federal Drug Enforcement Administration, duly authorized agents of
the Bureau for Medical Services and the Workers' Compensation
Commission,
duly authorized agents of the Office of the Chief
Medical Examiner, duly authorized agents of licensing boards of
practitioners in this state and other states authorized to
prescribe Schedules II, III and IV controlled substances,
prescribing practitioners and pharmacists and persons with an
enforceable court order or regulatory agency administrative
subpoena:
Provided, That all information released by the State
Board of Pharmacy must be related to a specific patient or a
specific individual or entity under investigation by any of the
above parties except that practitioners who prescribe controlled
substances may request specific data related to their Drug
Enforcement Administration controlled substance registration number
or for the purpose of providing treatment to a patient. The board
shall maintain the information required by this article for a
period of not less than five years. Notwithstanding any other
provisions of this code to the contrary, data obtained under the
provisions of this article may be used for compilation of
educational, scholarly or statistical purposes as long as the
identities of persons or entities remain confidential. No
individual or entity required to report under section four of this
article may be subject to a claim for civil damages or other civil
relief for the reporting of information to the Board of Pharmacy as
required under and in accordance with the provisions of this article.
NOTE: The purpose of this bill is to permit duly authorized
agents of the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner to have access
to inspect certain confidential information on controlled
substances that is required to be kept by the State Board of
Pharmacy.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added