Assignment 1: Medical Case Study

1. Yes, I do agree with the court that such a law and the actions taken fall within the realm of a special needs search. I argue that looking at a patient prescription could be very useful to law enforcement. Especially, since prescription drugs are so popular in today’s society. If law enforcement is noticing that an enormous amount of deaths are occurring in the community due to an over dosage of pills then it’s important to look at the prescription being subscribed. Mostly likely there is a doctor that is prescribing these medications and if law enforcement can review patient’s prescription they can possible find a pattern. For example, if there is a doctor that is providing all of his patients with a 120 oxycodone pills per month then that could be a problem. There is no way possible that every patient should get the same amount of pills each month. In the past there were doctors caught being paid a certain amount of money to prescribe whatever the patient wants. I know for a fact there are plenty of
I don’t think law enforcement officers should face any consequences to review a pharmacy records because they are acting off of good faith. When law enforcement are looking into patients records they are aiming to generalize public safety. Although, when law enforcement officers review patient’s records, they may notice something that looks suspicious. For example, a 16 year old boy would be receiving a 150 oxycodone’s per month. Or if a 50 year old women is receiving 50 Viagra pills per month. Why is a women receiving Viagra? Those pills are for males. That is an automatic red flag and law enforcement should look deeper into that patient’s record to see how long that’s been going on. This could now turn into a criminal investigation. For the 16 year old boy they might investigate why is he receiving so many pills and he is a kid. Then for the 50 year old women, what is she doing with the Viagra pills. As a law enforcement I would assume that she is selling