The State Affairs SOCIAL Committee. The State Affairs Committee usually listens to issues that have statewide implications. This week, however, the committee spent a majority of its time considering social issues. One such bill, HB216, would provide freedom of conscience for pharmacists, pharmacies, and institutions to provide immunity from liability when they refuse a prescription based on religious reasons. There are two problems with the bill: 1) The proposal seeks to provide a right that pharmacists already have, and 2) The bill is too far reaching and as written will have effects that will be troublesome and unintended.

  Pharmacists in the state of Idaho have always had the right to both turn away business like any other business or profession and also to not fill. The absence of a “duty to fill” in Idaho Pharmacy Rule, by default,  allow pharmacists the “right to refuse”. This allows pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription that would result in a fatal overdose as well as many other circumstances . So says Sam Hoagland , who has both practiced law and maintained his license as a pharmacist for over a quarter of a century here in Idaho. He is a longtime follower of this issue and has taught pharmacy law for ten years with the School of Pharmacy.

  H216, while written in the Title and Statement of Purpose (SOP) section to address specifically, the actions of “pharmacists, pharmacies, and institutions”, in the actual body of the statute it fails to do so, only referring to “persons”. This then allows any person distributing drugs to refuse. Unlike a pharmacist that may have some understanding of the clinical background of the patient and the therapy, a non-pharmacist may deny but may be incorrect in surmising the intended use of the medication. Furthermore, according to the Attorney General consult I requested, it states that, the relevant definition in the Idaho Pharmacy Act defines person as “an individual, corporation, partnership, association or any other legal entity”.

 In addition to who can refuse, the actual statute refers not only to prescription medication but refusal can be for any drug whether it requires a prescription or not.  

 Finally, the profession of pharmacy was not consulted as this bill was being contemplated, drafted or vetted.

  This legislation is unnecessary, over-reaching and should be rejected. At such time that a bill concerning the profession of pharmacy resurface, it should be brought by the profession of pharmacy, rather than a non- pharmacist that did not even know there were professional pharmacy associations whose charge it is to address the practice and profession of pharmacy.

 Commentary:

 Instead of social issues, the State Affairs Committee should be considering solutions to help all of us in this economic downtown. Some suggestions might be: 1) Freeing up more money from the lottery to help restore cuts in the classroom that would affect our kids, 2) Helping with efficiencies in Idaho’s infrastructure so that more can be done with less, and, finally, 3) Directing stimulus money for small businesses that would create jobs and a better future for us all.

Get Involved. Let’s have a larger debate on the real issues that affect us, the middle class and working families. Our ideas need your help to get them out of committee drawers. Write letters to the editor, send tweets, gather everyone together, and let’s get really thoughtful discussions on real solutions going!