Senate Bill No. 647
(By Senators Plymale and Kessler)
____________
[Introduced February 12, 2008; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary; and then to the Committee on Finance.]
____________
A BILL to amend and reenact §60A-9-5 of the Code of West Virginia,
1931, as amended, relating 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,
the elected sheriff of
each county or his or her designee, 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 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 give sheriffs and their
designee's the right to view the information contained in the State
Board of Pharmacy's database.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added.