Senate Bill No. 468
(By Senators Plymale and Jenkins)
____________
[Introduced January 28, 2008; referred to the Committee on Health
and Human Resources; and then to the Committee on the Judiciary.]
____________
A BILL to amend and reenact §60A-9-5 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating to authorizing county sheriffs to
have access to the State Board of Pharmacy database.
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,
the elected sheriff of each county or designee, duly authorized agents of the Bureau for
Medical Services and the Workers' Compensation Commission, 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 authorize county sheriffs
to have access to the State Board of Pharmacy database.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.