California’s laws in the New Year!
Here are just some of California’s new laws taking effect tomorrow (followed by my witty ripostes).
- Performing body piercing on a minor can be punishable by a $250 fine, unless the minor’s parent gives approval.
- Law enforcement officers can impound vehicles of drunken driving suspects if the person has a blood-alcohol level of .10 percent or higher and has one or more previous convictions within the past seven years.
- Pharmacists are barred from refusing to fill a prescription on moral, ethical or religious grounds, unless they have previously notified their employer of their objection and the employer can reasonably accommodate it.
- Some entertainment venues will be required to announce the availability of emergency exits at the start of performances.
- Homeowners associations must use secret ballots for elections in common-interest developments.
- Lenders who offer cash advances to consumers whose inheritance is tied up in probate will have to disclose all fees and get court approval for the transactions.
- Extends the ban on the sale of soda on public school campuses to high schools. Previously, the law only applied to middle and elementary schools. The law also sets nutrition standards for food served and sold in K-12 public schools.
- High-risk sex offenders cannot live within a half mile of public or private K-12 schools. Previously, the boundary was one-quarter mile from K-8 schools.
What about minors’ rights to privacy?! Luckily performing an invasive, dangerous medical procedure that involves killing a fetus inside a minor requires no such parental approval.
I think if said DUIer has had previous convictions within the past seven years, the cop should be allowed shoot him on the spot.
I think two things about this; one, if a person thinks he will be unable to fill prescriptions because of his moral objections to doing so, then I think he should choose, without government coercion, a profession other than Pharmacy; two, should the government really be meddling in this? Or is this more the proper role of the market to sort out? Pharmacy A hires people who refuse to fill certain prescriptions, so people who want those prescrips go to Pharmacy B.
If you can’t find emergency exits on your own, tough luck. It’s called survival of the fittest.
Does passing this law really fall within the proper scope of government action?
Again, should government pass this type of law? If you are stupid enough to take a cash advance when your means of repaying it are tied up in probate, tough luck. It’s called survival of the awarest.
More asinine nannying. Scapegoating soft-drink companies for childhood obesity is wrong and dumb.
And finally:
This law is moronic; these types of offenders shouldn’t be allowed to live amongst us at all, regardless of their proximity to schools. Instead, they should be locked up for life, and/or executed. Generally speaking, in California a “high-risk” sex offender is a person convicted of multiple violent crimes, at least one of which was a violent sex crime.
Merry New Year!
December 31st, 2005 at 1:20 pm
“Simultaneously I think two things about this; one, if a person thinks he will be unable to fill prescriptions because of his moral objections to doing so, then he shouldn’t be a pharmacist….”
You really think this? Would you really prohibit strong pro-lifers from being pharmacists?
I’d say that if I own a drug store, I should definitely be allowed to have a policy that requires my employees to fill every lawful prescription or be fired, but that’s becuase it’s my business. On the other hand, I think it’d be equally legitimate for my pharmacy to say either 1) any of my employees who choose to may refuse to fill abortion prescriptions; or 2) my entire store will refuse to fill such prescriptions. If such a pharmacy existed, I’d be sure to patronize it exclusively.
December 31st, 2005 at 1:26 pm
I didn’t mean the *government* should *prevent* pro-lifers or anyone else from being pharmacists; I just meant that, in my opinion, on their own people should decide not to be pharmacists if they can’t fulfill the job requirements.
December 31st, 2005 at 1:34 pm
I rewrote that part of the post so that hopefully it’s more clear.
December 31st, 2005 at 2:03 pm
The home-owners association thing can be government interest because HOA’s rule on property changes and similar. There are people petty enough to blackballtheir opponents. Suppose Maxine Waters was on your HOA and you had visibly opposed her…
The inheritance thing may relate to elderly folks who’s awareness is diming.
As for announcements at venues: I’m expecting movies to start now with a demonstation of door-opening and an announcement about people sitting in exit rows. Maybe an usher with a little demostration door…
December 31st, 2005 at 2:06 pm
My take on DUIs is that anyone might get one of these, but more-than-one isn’t “bad luck.” After 2 DUIs in, oh, 20 years, the largest car they should drive is a Ford Fiesta. Or maybe a moped. Certainly no one with a history of DUI should operate an SUV or pickup.
December 31st, 2005 at 2:12 pm
Kevin: The State of California should make Maxine Waters illegal.
December 31st, 2005 at 2:37 pm
Miami Beach, FL was trying to legislate something approaching what you suggest for sex offenders. A registered sex offender can’t live within half a mile of a school, a daycare, a bus stop, or a park. Pretty much eliminates every residence in the city.
It was decided that they couldn’t throw out the current resident sex offenders, but they can prevent any more from moving in to the restricted zones.
I don’t know if they managed to pass this or not - there was a huge hullaballoo when this was in the works, but I never heard if it passed or not.
December 31st, 2005 at 3:19 pm
The HOA law sound reasonable enough. HOAs need at least as much reining in as local governments do, and for the same reason. Barring that, I’d settle for the wholesale repeal of all laws granting HOAs any powers above and beyond those allowable under ordinary contracts.
January 1st, 2006 at 8:05 am
[...] Today, a lot of dumb laws go into effect in California. Kipper rounds them up. [...]
January 1st, 2006 at 10:02 am
“I just meant that, in my opinion, on their own people should decide not to be pharmacists if they can’t fulfill the job requirements.”
But who decided that filling all prescriptions, including those for abortion, is a “job requirement”? It strikes me that you’re saying that pro-lifers shouldn’t be pharmacists, whether that’s enforced by the govt. or not.
January 1st, 2006 at 11:37 am
Amen to that Xrlq. Of course, I simply told my real estate agent: “Under no circumstances are you to show me a house subject to a HOA. If you do, I will cease doing business with you.”
January 1st, 2006 at 11:38 am
Pharmacists are barred from refusing to fill a prescription on moral, ethical or religious grounds, unless they have previously notified their employer of their objection and the employer can reasonably accommodate it.
As its written in the article, its sounds perfectly reasonable to me. Having said that, the AP could be misrepresenting the law. For one, its saying that a Pharmacist can’t suddenly refuse to fill a particular prescription, they have to voice their objection to their employer beforehand and the employer only has to agree to allow it if they can make an accomodation.
Secondly, pharmacists, like lawyers, are a profession that has to do things that they might not want. If I walk into your office and establish an attorney-client relationship, you can’t suddenly decide that you are going to publish everything I told you in the New York Times. I could tell you that I shot JFK, and wouldn’t be able to tell anyone. In the same manner, a pharmacy has to play by rules that they might not like..but their choice is to get into a different line of work.
January 1st, 2006 at 12:18 pm
I’m not sure the lawyer analogy works, Manish. Contrary to the implications of yoru comment, You can’t just walk into my office and establish an attorney-client relationship.” I don’t have to take you as a client, and if I do, I don’t have to agree to represent you on any particular matter, particularly one I find offensive.
January 1st, 2006 at 12:27 pm
I’ve noticed that the state legislators most concerned about nutrition always seem to look like they never passed up a Big Gulp or candy bar in their lives.
January 1st, 2006 at 1:56 pm
Spoons:
You wrote, “But who decided that filling all prescriptions, including those for abortion, is a “job requirement”? It strikes me that you’re saying that pro-lifers shouldn’t be pharmacists, whether that’s enforced by the govt. or not.”
I don’t think that at all. If a pro-lifer works at a pharmacy whose owner shares his view on abortion, and they refuse to fill certain prescriptions, I think that’s just dandy.
Similarly, if a pharmacy has a policy that it will fill prescriptions contrary to the moral sensibilities of pro-lifers, and a pro-life pharmacist there decides he doesn’t want to fill said prescriptions, he should do so anyway, or find a new place of employment.
Spoons, is it your position that pharmacies should be compelled by government or otherwise to make special accommodations for their employees who stop doing their jobs?
If a pharmacist is aware of the job requirements, he should meet them or quit. You ask, who sets the “job requirements”? It is the pharmacy owners who set the “job requirements”.
January 1st, 2006 at 2:01 pm
“Under no circumstances are you to show me a house subject to a HOA. If you do, I will cease doing business with you.”
Good luck.
January 1st, 2006 at 4:50 pm
I’m sitting in one. I’ll never buy a new home, I’m sure, but fortunately where I live — the East Bay — most of the pre-1980 or so housing stock doesn’t have them.
After all, what I really need is a 4-bed, 2-bath home with hardwood floors, a carport, and an extra layer of government.
Eerrr. NFW.
January 2nd, 2006 at 11:58 am
I wonder if your view on who should go into pharmacology would change if prescriptions for suicide drugs were made legal, say in Washington State? If I chose to be a pharmacist would I also choose to abet self destruction? That said, it seems that an employer should be able to have his employees fill out any legal prescription but that many won’t. The market is big enough that there is 1) no shortage of birth control providers and 2) no shortage of pharmacies not wishing to fill the “kill the patient” type prescriptions.
Not very long ago (1964) most doctors would not provide birth control to unmarried women who were not at least affianced. The law had nothing to do with it (except in Connecticut), the culture did. The culture has done a 180. There is no intrinsic reason it could not go back and this law, if it is as stated, would not do any one any harm as employers wouldn’t care as they wouldn’t be filling those scrips.
January 2nd, 2006 at 12:05 pm
I’m pretty sure most doctors don’t even take the Hippocratic Oath any longer.
January 2nd, 2006 at 2:45 pm
…Kipper at xrlq.com has a round up of California’s new laws…
January 3rd, 2006 at 11:01 am
“Contrary to the implications of yoru comment, You can’t just walk into my office and establish an attorney-client relationship.” I don’t have to take you as a client, and if I do, I don’t have to agree to represent you on any particular matter, particularly one I find offensive.”
However, most clients won’t tell you up front, “I’m a sociopathic liar, and I want you to help me file a lawsuit that’s based only on my lies and manufactured evidence.” They’ll come in with a reasonable sounding story, and by the time you figure out the truth, you might be so deep into the case that it’s unethical to bail on the client. Or you might just have the bad luck to pass within view of a judge at the moment he realizes that Chester the Molester can’t be put away without a proper trial, including a defense attorney…
January 3rd, 2006 at 6:03 pm
Pharmacists are licensed by the government presumedly to serve the public interest. I think requiring them to fill any legal prescription is consistent with this. An analogy would be to taxi drivers who are generally required to take you where you want to go.
Also this law does not seem to require that pharmacies stock all drugs. However refusing to give anyone a drug seems less objectionable than arbitrarily deciding some customers are not worthy.
May 29th, 2006 at 7:06 pm
California gets a whole new bunch of laws…
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