Pain and privacy

North Carolina's sheriffs may mean well in seeking access to state records that identify people who take drugs that are on a federal list of controlled substances. (State law requires pharmacies to provide the information.) Through the state sheriffs' association, they're pushing the idea because they say it would help them catch people who are abusing prescription drugs - going to many doctors, for example, to get medications such as sleeping and pain pills in large quantities.

Yes, that access probably would help the sheriffs. But it goes too far and creates an imbalance in the always-delicate issue of how much privacy people should be expected to surrender in order to make law enforcement easier for those charged with the job. And this falls under the category of too far.

Most people take such medications for valid reasons under a single doctor's care. And most doctors these days are very careful when prescribing these types of potentially habit-forming medications.

So there's no good reason, or at least not one good enough, to have people for whom these drugs have been prescribed on a list to which law officers can have access, when the patients haven't done anything wrong.

The state started collecting the information in 2007, mainly to help doctors themselves identify people who might be in search of multiple prescriptions. But only about 20 percent of doctors have registered to use the information, and only 10 percent of pharmacies are registered to contribute to it. While a lobbyist for state retail merchants says the situation is being addressed, it's liable to take a while.

Eddie Caldwell, a lobbyist for the sheriffs, offered a signal that his organization is ready to compromise. He said the sheriffs really don't want to invade the privacy of law-abiding citizens and that middle ground on this issue could be found. Until then, the sheriffs should drop it.