Legislation

The state's medical marijuana law was crafted to put a high priority on patient privacy, but that consideration has been placed on the back burner a number of times in recent years in the name of public safety.

Another well-intentioned piece of legislation, addressing the opioid overdose crisis, threatened to erode the trust addicted people have with their doctors by allowing doctors to break confidentiality and tell family members and friends of a person's addicted status - even over their express wishes.

This session, the Attorney General sought to undermine an ACLU-backed 2016 law concerning warrants and cell phone location tracking by promoting legislation allowing law enforcement to keep you in the dark - perhaps indefinitely - if your location has been tracked.

While addressing the serious issue of maternal mental health disorders is a laudable goal, legislation under consideration this year requiring a mental health screening for mothers before release from a birthing facility would have set a troubling precedent for the privacy and treatment of new moms.

Some of the most concerning civil liberties legislation this year came in the form of legislation dealing with your health, including bills to require that all adult immunization records be automatically included in a DOH database unless the patient opts out.

This year, the General Assembly considered yet another exemption to the confidentiality of the state prescription drug monitoring database in the form of legislation allowing health insurers, workers’ compensation insurers and HMOs, among others, to access private prescription information.

Legislation aimed to make Rhode Island the next state to adopt “death with dignity” legislation, allowing terminal patients to obtain medication to end their lives.

Through a combination of cheap, sophisticated technology and financial incentives provided by the federal government, law enforcement entities nationwide have begun obtaining and using drones. Yet, the laws protecting us from misuse have not caught up with the technology or the demand.