Medical Prescription Warrantless Searches Get New Challenge

Medical prescription records should be shielded from warrantless searches by federal agents cracking down on illegal use of opioids and other narcotics, New Hampshire officials are arguing in a First Circuit case.

The case is the first to test whether the Supreme Court’s decision last year in a cellphone privacy case, Carpenter v. United States, should apply to consumers’ prescription information that states collect and hold. Success for New Hampshire may encourage other states to thwart law enforcement access to the drug databases.

New Hampshire’s arguments are “on stronger legal footing now with the Supreme Court’s decision,” Nathan Freed Wessler, ...