Sen. Keiser: Consumers must have access to legal prescriptions

OLYMPIA – Washington’s pharmacies have to allow women access to a legal form of birth control as a condition of doing business in the state, if a bill introduced by Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Kent, becomes law.

In order to get a license from the Department of Health (DOH), pharmacy owners would be required to file a declaration that it is in compliance with the duty to timely dispense all legal prescriptions. DOH would develop rules for granting exceptions to the above requirement based on the population served by each pharmacy location.

“Pharmacies have to be licensed to operate a business in Washington,” Keiser explained. “Under my bill, the business would have a duty to dispense all legal drugs.”

The legislation is written to apply to all legal prescriptions, so pharmacies would also be forbidden from refusing to dispense other controversial prescriptions, including regular birth control pills.

In November, a federal judge temporarily suspended the state Pharmacy Board’s rule that individual pharmacists must arrange for prompt dispensing of the "morning-after" birth control pills known as Plan B. Keiser’s legislation applies to pharmacies, not individual pharmacists, and would not be affected by the final court decision. Keiser expects that ruling will be appealed, and hopes it will eventually be reversed.

Keiser, who chairs the Senate Health & Long-Term Care Committee, guaranteed that hearings on the duty to dispense requirement would occur early in the 2008 session which begins January 14.

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