October 2015—Public Health Law News

Webinar: Healthy People 2020 Law and Health Policy Project. The ABA Health Law Section’s Public Health and Policy Interest Group, along with CDC’s Public Health Law Program (PHLP) and HHS’s Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, are offering Healthy People 2020 Law and Health Policy Project: The Role of Law in Advancing Health Outcomes, a complimentary three-part webinar series.The first webinar in the series, An Introduction to the Healthy People 2020 Law and Health Policy Project, is scheduled for Monday, October 19, 2015, at 12:00 pm (EDT).

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Webinar: Tribal Public Health Data and Surveillance: The Role of Law. PHLP and the Network for Public Health Law are co-hosting a webinar series on tribal public health law. The third webinar in the series will take place Thursday, November 5, 2015, 1:00–2:30 pm (EST). This webinar will provide background on American Indian and Alaska Native public health data and surveillance issues and discuss the role of law in the access to this data. Topics will include data access and quality, the role of tribal, state, and federal jurisdictions, and tribal epidemiology centers.

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Webinar Series on the Intersection of Public Health and Health Care—The Role of Law. The American Health Lawyers Association and PHLP are co-hosting a six-part, free webinar series focused on legal issues at the intersection of public health and health care. The last webinar in the series, One Year of Ebola—Legal Issues and Considerations will take place Friday, November 20, 2015, 1:00–2:30 pm (EST). This webinar will examine the current state of Ebola in West Africa, the legal considerations implicated in the US response to the outbreak, state screening and monitoring policies and their evolution over the past year, and how healthcare settings are legally preparing for the next threat. 

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Association of Healthcare Emergency Preparedness Professionals (AHEPP). A new professional association dedicated to advancing the field of disaster preparedness and response, AHEPP is accepting members and hosting their first national conference. The conference will help guide participants through the most important disaster concerns in various types of healthcare facilitates and will be on November 17–18, 2015, in Omaha, Nebraska. See AHEPP’s website for the complete conference agenda, and more information.

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Special Ethics Pre-Conference Session at the 143rd Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association. The APHA Learning Institute is offering a course for public health professionals, LI1005 Good Decision Making in Real Time: Practical Public Health Ethics for Health Officials, at the 2015 Annual APHA meeting. The ethics session will take place October 31, 2015, 9:00 am–5:00 pm CST in Chicago, Illinois. It will introduce the basics of public health ethics and engage participants in discussion of case studies on issues public health officials are likely to face. Contact Drue Barrett at DBarrett@cdc.gov or 404-639-4690 for more information about the course. APHA’s 2015 Meeting will take place October 31–November 4, 2015. 

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2016 Public Health Law Conference. The Public Health Law Conference will take place September 15–17, 2016, at the Grand Hyatt, in Washington, DC. The conference, hosted by the Network for Public Health Law, is for public health lawyers, practitioners, officials, policymakers, researchers, and advocates. Conference attendees will learn about laws and policies affecting critical public health issues such as disease prevention, drug overdose, health data sharing, and access to care. Early bird registration is available now.

Ebola Monitoring and Movement Protocols: TEDMED/Ignite Video. As a result of concerns about the potential impact of inconsistencies between state and federal monitoring and movement policies, PHLP assessed jurisdictional differences among publically available monitoring and movement policies by systematically reviewing and evaluating policies for each state and territory. This presentation describes the role CDC plays in our public health and legal systems and explains how this affected the state Ebola monitoring and movement protocols. Data contained in this presentation were current as of March 9, 2015. For the most recent data, visit the Ebola Movement and Monitoring Policies web page.

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Menu of Selected Tribal Motor Vehicle Safety Laws [PDF 534KB]. An inventory of select tribal laws related to motor vehicle safety. This menu, published by PHLP, informs tribal public health practitioners, policymakers, and attorneys about tribes’ use of law as a tool to address motor vehicle-related injuries.

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Law Synopsis on toking and smoking regulations and public health. [PDF 1.40MB] The Tobacco Control Legal Consortium released a law synopsis, Toking, Smoking and Public Health: Lessons from Tobacco Control for Marijuana Regulation. The synopsis discusses the legal status of marijuana, an overview of state marijuana laws, regulatory options, and more.

Oregon’s legal sale of marijuana comes with reprieve
New York Times   (09/20/2015)   Kirk Johnson

Oregon legalized recreational marijuana use through a ballot measure in November 2014. The law took effect October 15, 2015. Along with legalization of marijuana, the state is also passing laws allowing people who were convicted under Oregon’s criminal code before marijuana was legalized to seal their records. This process allows those convicted to legally swear they have never been convicted of applicable crimes. Currently, sealing is available for misdemeanors, but beginning in 2016, more serious felony convictions will be eligible for record sealing.

“Oregon is one of the first states to really grapple with the issue of what do you do with a record of something that used to be a crime and no longer is,” said Jenny M. Roberts, a professor of law at American University in Washington, DC, who specializes in criminal law and sentencing.

Oregon has two other new laws. One requires courts to use current legal standards in considering records-clearing applications. The other new law allows fast-track record clearing for people who were under 21 at the time of the past conviction.

Oregon’s recreational marijuana laws differ from other states’ in various ways. Notably, police officers in Washington and Colorado, two other states where recreational marijuana is legal, must administer blood tests for drivers suspected of driving while high. On the other hand, Oregon allows the officer to use his or her judgement to determine if someone is too high to drive.

Oregon is uniquely situated in the relatively new legal landscape of legalized recreational marijuana. “Oregon is lucky in its position and timing, able to see what was and was not working,” said William Simpson, owner and president of Chalice Farms, a medical marijuana company that will enter Oregon’s recreational market.

[Editor’s note: Learn more about marijuana in Oregon and Oregon’s marijuana laws [PDF 41KB].]

Colorado: Colorado’s high court to decide if cities can ban fracking
Associated Press   (09/21/2015)   Dan Elliot

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Colorado: Marijuana subject to product liability claim in Colorado
U.S. News and World Report   (10/05/2015)   Kristen Wyatt

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Georgia: Executive who shipped tainted peanuts gets 28 years; 9 died of Salmonella
Washington Post   (09/21/2015)   Brady Dennis
[Editor’s note: Learn more about Salmonella.]

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New York: Pilot program will gauge air quality in New York nail salons
New York Times   (09/29/2015)   Benjamin Mueller

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South Carolina: Obama declares South Carolina state of emergency due to excessive flooding
Las Vegas Review-Journal   (10/04/2015)   Harriet McLeod
[Editor’s note: Learn more about the South Carolina declaration and how to prepare for a flooding emergency.]

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National: Covert electronic surveillance prompts calls for transparency
New York Times   (09/28/2015)   Timothy Williams

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National: FDA advisers to weigh concerns over Bayer’s Essure contraceptive
Reuters   (09/22/2015)   Toni Clarke
[Editor’s note: Learn more about Essure and read the Brief Summary of the Obstetrics and Gynecology Devices Panel of the Medical Devices Advisory Committee Meeting- September 2, 2015 [PDF 88KB].]

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National: How to reduce gun violence? Treat it as a public health problem
Forbes   (10/01/2015)   Dan Diamond

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National: How well are state anti-bullying laws working?
CBS News   (10/05/2015)   Ashley Welch
[Editor’s note: Read the study, Associations Between Antibullying Policies and Bullying in 25 States. Hatzenbuehler ML, Schwab-Reese L, Ranapurwala SI, Hertz MF, Ramirez MR. JAMA Pediatr. 2015;169(10):e152411. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2015.2411.]

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National: Is mental health ‘parity’ law fulfilling its promise?
CNN   (09/20/2015)   Jenny Gold
[Editor’s note: Learn more about the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act of 2008.]

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National: US, BP finalize $20.8 billion Deepwater oil spill settlement
Wall Street Journal   (10/05/2015)   Devlin Barrett
[Editor’s note: Listen to Attorney General Loretta E. Lync’s remarks about the settlement.]

Interview with Andy Baker-White, JD, MPH

Title:
Associate Directory, the Network for Public Health Law, Mid-States Region

Education:
I received my JD from the University of Kentucky College of Law in Lexington, Kentucky, and my MPH through the Community Oriented Public Health Practice program at the University of Washington School of Public Health in Seattle, Washington.

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Public Health Law News (PHLN): Please describe your career path.

Baker-White: Before moving to Seattle to attend the University of Washington, I practiced law at Legal Aid of the Bluegrass in my hometown of Ashland, Kentucky. As a legal aid attorney, I provided civil legal representation to victims of domestic violence, private and public housing tenants, and residents of long-term care facilities. Shortly after receiving my MPH, I joined the Network for Public Health Law (the Network), which launched in September 2010.

PHLN: How did you make the leap from working as an attorney at Legal Aid to practicing public health law?

Baker-White: It was while working at Legal Aid until I realized the connection between law and health. For example, I had a client who received a housing voucher and rented a house with a mold problem that aggravated her child’s asthma. After reporting the situation to the housing authority the landlord was instructed to fix the problem. I also began to see how protection orders could benefit the health of domestic violence clients, both physically and mentally. These realizations spurred my interest in how law and policy can positively and negatively affects a person’s health.

PHLN: Please describe your day-to-day work responsibilities.

Baker-White: At the Network, I provide legal technical assistance to public health practitioners, attorneys, advocates, and anyone who is interested in the way law improves and protects public health. I also develop fact sheets, issue briefs, and presentations about public health law issues. Mostly, I connect those who have questions about public health issues to legal resources that will help resolve their problems. 

PHLN: Can you tell us a little bit about some of the areas you’re currently focused on?

Baker-White: The Mid-States Region provides the lead for the Network on health information data sharing and public health statutes and regulatory information. One of the areas I’ve recently focused is vaccinations, including legal requirements for school attendance, healthcare workers and the influenza vaccine, and immunization information systems. Another emerging area of focus that more and more states and localities are dealing with is the legalization of recreational marijuana.

PHLN: What is the legal status of marijuana use in the United States?

Baker-White: At the federal level, the possession and sale of marijuana is prohibited by the Controlled Substances Act of 1970. As of October 2015, 23 states and the District of Columbia allow the possession and use of marijuana for medical purposes. Four states, Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon, and the District of Columbia, allow the recreational use and possession of marijuana.  

PHLN: What’s the difference between recreational and medical marijuana use?

Baker-White: The use and possession of medical marijuana is typically limited for those with specific diseases (e.g., post-traumatic stress disorder, cancer, and glaucoma) or symptoms (e.g., pain, seizures, severe nausea) which generally requires a physician’s determination and certification that the marijuana use would address the patient’s disease or symptom. Also, medical marijuana is often allowed for use by people under the age of 21, and many states issue user identification cards and/or maintain user registries.

The jurisdictions that allow recreational marijuana use have basically decriminalized its possession and use by people 21 years of age or older. However, Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon go beyond decriminalization and allow the commercial cultivation and retail sale of marijuana.

PHLN: Which states have legalized or have proposals to legalize recreational marijuana use?

Baker-White: Four states, Colorado, Washington, Alaska, and Oregon, and the District of Columbia allow the recreational use and possession of marijuana. In Ohio, there is a statewide initiative on the November 2015 ballot to amend the state constitution to allow the use, possession, cultivation, and retail sale of recreational marijuana. There are also efforts in other states (California, Nevada, Arizona, Missouri, Michigan, Florida, Maine, and Massachusetts) to place the recreational marijuana issue on state ballots in 2016.

PHLN: Are there any similarities or noteworthy differences between the policies and proposed policies? If so, can you please describe them?

Baker-White:  All the jurisdictions allowing recreational use prohibit driving while impaired or under the influence of marijuana. The states that allow the cultivation and sale of recreational marijuana have established or are developing licensing requirements for cultivators and retailers and have imposed either an excise or sales tax on the product. The differences are usually in the details. For example, the tax rates and licensing fees vary among the states, the number of licensees may or may not be limited, and the beneficiary recipients of the tax revenue often differ. Also, in Washington and under the Ohio proposal, a person cannot possess both a cultivator and retailer license. While in Oregon, possession of multiple license types will be allowed.

PHLN: Washington and Colorado legalized recreational marijuana use in 2012. How do those first polices differ from those taking effect or being proposed today?

Baker-White: The ballot initiative in Ohio is unique. It sets out, by parcel number, the 10 plots of land in the state where the marijuana will be grown. Critics of the proposal argue that the provision will create a “cultivation monopoly” while proponents say a limited number of growing sites will allow better regulation and monitoring by the state. An added wrinkle in Ohio is the state legislature passed an additional ballot initiative that, if approved, would prohibit the “cultivation monopoly.” It will be interesting to see how Ohio’s voters react.

PHLN: What kind of public health implications might legal recreational marijuana use have?

Baker-White: There are several public health concerns with legal recreational marijuana, many of which are familiar to those working in tobacco and alcohol control. These include, impaired driving, youth access, place of use (e.g., public space and multi-unit housing), and marketing and advertising issues. An emerging concern is the use of pesticides in marijuana cultivation. Pesticide application poses a health hazard to those who are cultivating the plants and chemicals can remain part of the product when used by consumers. This leads to the issue of monitoring and testing the marijuana for pesticides, mold, and other impurities. The level of required testing for safety and potency varies among the states.

PHLN: Which implications are the most concerning?

Baker-White: The federal government has cautioned the states allowing recreational marijuana to ensure that minors do not have access and that the marijuana remains within the state’s boundary. Colorado has dealt a lot with access by minors and marketing and labeling issues. The state requires recreational marijuana be sold in child proof containers and the product labels include information about potency and whether or not the marijuana was tested.

PHLN: What considerations should public health practitioners and policymakers keep in mind when dealing with and planning around recreational marijuana use? 

Baker-White: That there is spectrum of policy options when legalizing recreational marijuana. The District of Columbia has legalized the use and possession but has not created a legal market for its production, distribution, and sale. The other jurisdictions have gone beyond simple decriminalization and created legal markets. Policymakers need to realize the breadth of policy options and how each option affects public health. For example, one policy option rarely discussed is that of a state-run system for marijuana distribution and sale similar to the model of state-run liquor distributors and stores.

PHLN: What do you like about working in public health law?

Baker-White: Making connections. Both between the use of law and public health issues and with people who want to use and understand how law works to affect our health.

PHLN: If you weren’t working in public health law, what would you likely be doing?

Baker-White: It’s actually hard to imagine. I now look back on my days at legal aid as being part of my public health law career. I would still be doing public service and could see myself being part of a medical-legal partnership.

PHLN: Have you read any good books lately?

Baker-White: I enjoy history and non-fiction which can be as thrilling as fiction. I’m currently reading “The Bully Pulpit” by Doris Kearns Goodwin about the lives and presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt and William Taft, as well as the role the press played at the time. It’s fascinating to read how emerging issues and what we now describe as the social determinants of health were dealt with during a different era. In a lot of ways, what’s old is new again.

PHLN: What are your hobbies?

Baker-White: I like to travel, hike, and camp with my family. I spend as much of my free time as I can with my 4 and 5 year old kids. There’s rarely a dull moment.

PHLN: Is there anything you would like to add?

Baker-White: Just that the legalization of commercial marijuana is a fast-moving, multifaceted issue. There are many issues to still be addressed and it’s important that public health has sufficient input.

Andy Baker-White will be the new senior director for state health policy at ASTHO beginning mid-November.

The first reader to correctly answer the quiz question will be given a mini public health law profile in the November 2015 edition of the News. Email your entry to PHLawProgram@cdc.gov with “PHL Quiz” as the subject heading; entries without the heading will not be considered. Good luck!

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Public Health Law News Quiz Question: October 2015

What law school did Andy Baker-White attend?

Stephanie Youngblood

August Question: What month is National Preparedness Month?

Winning response: 
September

Employment organization and job title: Comfort Care Home Health, LLC; Agency Administrator

A brief explanation of your job: Comfort Care has four branches under one of our provider numbers. I oversee those four branches while running the parent office. I work with the management staff in planning all aspects of the nursing operation, including establishing priorities and job assignments. I also coordinate the establishment and implementation of the patient’s care plan, communicate policies, evaluate performance, provide feedback and coach as needed. I maintain a working knowledge and ensure compliance with all governmental regulations. There are numerous changes in our industry now so you have to be constantly researching for the latest information and communicate that back to all levels in the agency. I conduct and participate in department and agency education activities and staff meetings. I have to maintain professional competence through participation in continuing education programs, seminars and training programs.

Education: I am a registered nurse with an associate’s degree in nursing. I am currently enrolling to finish my bachelor’s degree in nursing where I plan to continue on and obtain a master’s in health administration. I attend every conference, seminar, webinar and class that I possibly can to stay on top of the industry in which I am working.

Favorite section of the News: The Quiz, of course! Really, it’s the top story that usually catches my eye.

Why are you interested in public health law? Because I work in an industry that directly affects the public, and I need to know what is going on at all times, to the best of my ability.

What is your favorite hobby? Reading and playing with my 6 beautiful, and I mean BEAUTIFUL, granddaughters!

Federal: HHS had authority to classify prescription drug plan as “non-exempt health benefit”
Seabrook v. Obama
United States District Court for the Southern District of New York
Case No. 14 CV 4431 (SAS)
Filed 08/04/2015
Opinion by District Judge Shira A. Scheindlin

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Federal: Congress precluded federal agency authority to regulate hydraulic fracking not involving the use of diesel fuels
State of Wyoming v. United States Department of the Interior [PDF 4.85MB]
United States District Court for the District of Wyoming
Case no. 2:15-CV-0430SWS
Filed 09/30/2015
Order by United States District Judge Scott W. Skavdahl

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Federal: Court affirms preliminary injunction denial for minimum wage raise, ordinance does not facially discriminate against out-of-state entities
International Franchise Association, Inc. v. City of Seattle
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Case No. 15-35209
Filed 09/25/2015
Opinion by Senior Circuit Judge Michael Daly Hawkins

Quotation of the Month: Letitia James, Public Advocate for New York’s Program to Monitor Nail Salon Air Quality

“They’re going to use this prototype as a way to determine what nail salon they should patronize. It’s really an environmental justice issue because the vast majority of the workers are immigrants, and oftentimes they’re not empowered and not given the proper information,” said Letitia James, the public advocate for New York’s pilot program to evaluate nail salon air quality.