bwiese
03-09-2009, 04:47 PM
This case isn't directly gun related per se but shows how CA laws can cross the border when dealing with transactions whose 'nexus' is in CA.
I keep hearing from various idjits "it's OK to violate CA law as long as you're standing outside the state line" (or similar sentiments) - though it's usually worse on other fora (AR15.COM, THR, etc.) than Calguns.
Many other instances of this exist - for example, advertising of performance auto parts without using CARB warnings. And it's not just in CA: cross-state mailorder wine/alcohol sales into 'dry' states have had similar issues.
From http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/09/BALT16BUBD.DTL&tsp=1
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No-contest plea in Stanford suicide case
Henry K Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, March 9, 2009
(03-09) 15:21 PST REDWOOD CITY -- A former doctor from Colorado has been convicted of practicing medicine in California without a license for prescribing a generic form of Prozac over the Internet for a Stanford student who later committed suicide.
Christian Hageseth, 68, could face up to a year in jail when he is sentenced April 17, in a precedent-setting case that allowed a California county to reach across state lines to prosecute doctors who engage in "telemedicine" without examining or even seeing patients.
Hageseth's prosecution followed the August 2005 suicide of John McKay, a 19-year-old Stanford University student and former high school debate champion. McKay rolled up the windows in a car at his mother's Menlo Park home and died after inhaling exhaust fumes.
McKay completed his freshman year at Stanford two months earlier and had ordered 90 capsules of the antidepressant fluoxetine, the generic version of Prozac, from the India-based Web site usanetrx.com.
In a questionnaire that accompanied the order, he said he would use the drug to treat "adult attention deficit disorder in relation to depression" and also said he was not suicidal.
The site operator forwarded the order to a Texas company, JRB Health Solutions, which relayed it to Hageseth, its physician contractor in Fort Collins, Colo.
Hageseth quickly filled the prescription without contacting McKay and returned it to JRB, which had the pills shipped to Menlo Park from a pharmacy in Mississippi. San Mateo County prosecutors charged Hageseth with practicing medicine illegally, not with prescribing the wrong drug or causing McKay's death. Hageseth entered a surprise no-contest plea Feb. 24 to a felony count of practicing medicine illegally.
Hageseth is not expected to be sentenced to any prison time, said Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County's chief deputy district attorney.
"The prosecution was extremely important to establish the principle that doctors utilizing the Internet as a tool to practice medicine must be licensed by the state of California, even if the doctor lives in another state," Wagstaffe said Monday. Hageseth was a doctor in Colorado, but surrendered his medical license in that state after the investigation began.
Hageseth's attorney, Carleton Briggs, said the case set a dangerous precedent.
"I'm just very worried about a situation in which California is declaring the power to jail out-of-state telemedicine providers for not being licensed in California," Briggs said. "If the CEO of Google wants to call the Mayo Clinic with a medical question, given this case they have to hang up on him." He added, "Never before in the history of the English-speaking world has an out-of-state telemedicine provider been jailed for being unlicensed. This means that California is purporting to control the Internet."
Traces of fluoxetine were found in McKay's body after his death, along with alcohol. However, in a civil suit by his parents against the Mississippi pharmacy, JRB and Hageseth, a federal judge said experts on both sides of the case had concluded the drug was not a cause of his death.
McKay's parents settled their suits against the pharmacy and JRB and dropped their suit against Hageseth.
"Internet doctors like him pose a serious danger and should be held accountable for their actions," McKay's father, David McKay, a former Stanford professor now living in Colorado, said Monday. "He should be held accountable to exactly the same standards that every practicing physician in a clinic is held every day for every patient they see - nothing more and nothing less."
E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.
I keep hearing from various idjits "it's OK to violate CA law as long as you're standing outside the state line" (or similar sentiments) - though it's usually worse on other fora (AR15.COM, THR, etc.) than Calguns.
Many other instances of this exist - for example, advertising of performance auto parts without using CARB warnings. And it's not just in CA: cross-state mailorder wine/alcohol sales into 'dry' states have had similar issues.
From http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/03/09/BALT16BUBD.DTL&tsp=1
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No-contest plea in Stanford suicide case
Henry K Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, March 9, 2009
(03-09) 15:21 PST REDWOOD CITY -- A former doctor from Colorado has been convicted of practicing medicine in California without a license for prescribing a generic form of Prozac over the Internet for a Stanford student who later committed suicide.
Christian Hageseth, 68, could face up to a year in jail when he is sentenced April 17, in a precedent-setting case that allowed a California county to reach across state lines to prosecute doctors who engage in "telemedicine" without examining or even seeing patients.
Hageseth's prosecution followed the August 2005 suicide of John McKay, a 19-year-old Stanford University student and former high school debate champion. McKay rolled up the windows in a car at his mother's Menlo Park home and died after inhaling exhaust fumes.
McKay completed his freshman year at Stanford two months earlier and had ordered 90 capsules of the antidepressant fluoxetine, the generic version of Prozac, from the India-based Web site usanetrx.com.
In a questionnaire that accompanied the order, he said he would use the drug to treat "adult attention deficit disorder in relation to depression" and also said he was not suicidal.
The site operator forwarded the order to a Texas company, JRB Health Solutions, which relayed it to Hageseth, its physician contractor in Fort Collins, Colo.
Hageseth quickly filled the prescription without contacting McKay and returned it to JRB, which had the pills shipped to Menlo Park from a pharmacy in Mississippi. San Mateo County prosecutors charged Hageseth with practicing medicine illegally, not with prescribing the wrong drug or causing McKay's death. Hageseth entered a surprise no-contest plea Feb. 24 to a felony count of practicing medicine illegally.
Hageseth is not expected to be sentenced to any prison time, said Steve Wagstaffe, San Mateo County's chief deputy district attorney.
"The prosecution was extremely important to establish the principle that doctors utilizing the Internet as a tool to practice medicine must be licensed by the state of California, even if the doctor lives in another state," Wagstaffe said Monday. Hageseth was a doctor in Colorado, but surrendered his medical license in that state after the investigation began.
Hageseth's attorney, Carleton Briggs, said the case set a dangerous precedent.
"I'm just very worried about a situation in which California is declaring the power to jail out-of-state telemedicine providers for not being licensed in California," Briggs said. "If the CEO of Google wants to call the Mayo Clinic with a medical question, given this case they have to hang up on him." He added, "Never before in the history of the English-speaking world has an out-of-state telemedicine provider been jailed for being unlicensed. This means that California is purporting to control the Internet."
Traces of fluoxetine were found in McKay's body after his death, along with alcohol. However, in a civil suit by his parents against the Mississippi pharmacy, JRB and Hageseth, a federal judge said experts on both sides of the case had concluded the drug was not a cause of his death.
McKay's parents settled their suits against the pharmacy and JRB and dropped their suit against Hageseth.
"Internet doctors like him pose a serious danger and should be held accountable for their actions," McKay's father, David McKay, a former Stanford professor now living in Colorado, said Monday. "He should be held accountable to exactly the same standards that every practicing physician in a clinic is held every day for every patient they see - nothing more and nothing less."
E-mail Henry K. Lee at hlee@sfchronicle.com.