Arizona City Considering Fingerprinting Pharmacy Customers

Peoria, Arizona, may become the first city in the nation to require fingerprints for prescription medications.

Current law requires that an ID be shown when picking up a prescription. That is understandable. An ID is required to use a credit or debit card in many stores now.

 

Increasing prescription fraud had brought the matter before the Peoria City Council which will likely take up the proposed ordinance in March. The Arizona Board of Pharmacy will give its input by then, and it will be interesting to see how they respond.

 

The ordinance will likely require an ID and a fingerprint when a prescription medication is picked up. Is this going to stop the problem? Not likely. It may temporarily lessen it, but people who are addicted to a prescription medicine like OxyContin need treatment, not a fingerprint. They are going to find ways to get their drug of choice.

 

The abuse of prescription medicines is a problem. They are claimed to be second to marijuana in their misuse. Both are dwarfed by the misuse of legal drugs like alcohol and cigarettes, though. Peoria officials say that the problem has increased seven-fold since 2007. Pharmacies are supposed to report bogus prescriptions to authorities but have been lax at doing so.

 

If Peoria has a seven-fold increase in prescription medicines hitting the streets in a four-year span, then they have a bigger problem than fingerprinting is going to solve. The city leaders are missing the cause of the problem. They need to put their heads together and come up with some real solutions instead of their fingers on a ink pad where they can then throw their ink-stained hands up and say they tried.

 

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed its view that the idea is unconstitutional.

 

"You can't just willy-nilly take the prints of everybody because it's nice for you as law enforcement to have a pool of prints to use at some future date," ACLU Arizona Director Dan Pachoda said.

 

Over the last 50 years, public campaigns to educate people about the health risks of cigarettes has dramatically succeeded by reducing cigarette smoking to about 20% from its peak in the early 1950's. Yet this highly successful model is flat-out ignored most of the time.

 

Once again, another step in the drug wars is focused on enforcement. It will increase regulations, costs and harassment of citizens who have done nothing wrong but get a prescription for a painkiller or allergy medicine.

 

It would be far better to spend some money on treatment and public education. Although it might not be such a bad idea to fingerprint the politicians behind this idea and ban them from making more regulations that will not solve any problems.

 

For more on foolishness in government, see Foolocracy.com.