Columnist Jeff German: Lawmakers dispense critiques of plan

Sunday, Oct. 30, 2005 | 8:53 a.m.

Over the years I haven't paid much attention to the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy.

But that changed last week when I heard about the board's ridiculous proposal to allow pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription if it violates their moral beliefs.

My conscience tells me that a public agency should not be going this far to intrude on the lives of the public.

Should a teenager be denied birth control pills because a pharmacist doesn't believe she should have sex?

And what about an AIDS patient who doesn't get life-saving medication because a pharmacist doesn't approve of the person's lifestyle?

Pharmacists may be well trained, but they're not doctors. And they have no idea what is said between doctors and patients when prescriptions are written.

"I don't see where someone's moral view on medication should interfere with a decision between a patient and a physician," says Assembly Majority Leader Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas.

"Why are we making people with busy and complex lives justify why they need a prescription?"

Assemblywoman Chris Giunchigliani, D-Las Vegas, is as angry as Buckley about the dangerous direction in which the pharmacy board is heading.

"This is about access to health care, not one's values or morals," she says. "If pharmacists don't feel they can fill certain prescriptions, they shouldn't be in that business."

About four years ago, Giunchigliani says, she met a young woman from Carson City, who told her she couldn't get her critical diabetic medicine because the pharmacist didn't like the way she looked.

That was enough to persuade Giunchigliani to sponsor legislative bills in 2003 and 2005 to do the opposite of what the pharmacy board is proposing. The bills sought to prohibit pharmacists from letting their conscience influence the way they dispense medication.

Both measures passed the Democratic-controlled Assembly, but died in the Republican-controlled Senate.

Giunchigliani, however, is convinced that the Legislature will have the last word on this proposal if the pharmacy board is ignorant enough to make it a regulation.

That's because the public understands that its right to medical coverage is more important than the moral beliefs of the pharmacists.

* * *

The cops can't get fair news coverage from the Las Vegas Review-Journal in their bid for pay raises.

So they're doing the next best thing -- paying for a newspaper ad in the R-J to get their side of the story out.

"People out there need to know the truth, and we can't depend on the R-J to do it, so we have to pay for it ourselves," says Dave Kallas, executive director of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, the union that represents some 2,400 officers.

The half-page ad was scheduled to run this morning.

It takes some direct shots at the county commissioners, who derailed a tentative agreement last week that would have given officers a 16.75 percent cost of living raise over the next four years.

The starting salary for a full-time police officer, the ad says, is $42,975 compared with $68,391 for the part-time position of county commissioner.

The cops criticize the commissioners for opposing their cost of living raise, which comes out to 4.18 percent a year, while voting themselves an annual $14,391 increase two years ago.

"Something is horribly wrong when part-time county commissioners, who recently gave themselves a 26 percent pay raise, will not give our full-time officers a 4.18 percent increase," the ad says.

"Are they trying to protect our community, or protect their own pay?"