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A House bill filed last week would increase the penalties for a caregiver who is convicted of stealing pills from a patient.
State Rep. Jim DuPlessis, R-Elizabethtown, is sponsoring the legislation and said a local family brought the issue to his attention. A caregiver was arrested in March 2017 for taking an elderly patient’s pain medication, but he said there wasn’t much of a penalty for the individual.
“It was basically a slap on the wrist,” he said.
House Bill 110 would make the offense a Class C felony, which is punishable by five to 10 years in prison, if convicted.
“If you take advantage of someone who cannot fend for themselves, that should be a felony,” he said.
DuPlessis said the negative consequences could deter the crime.
The bill also changes the definition of exploitation to include obtaining or using one or more controlled substances prescribed to an adult or a member of the adult’s household with the intent to deprive the person of the medications.
“When families put their trust in an individual to care for a loved one in need, it is the proper insertion of our authority to legislate the steepest penalties for criminals who violate that trust by stealing from the innocent. This bill seeks to do that,” DuPlessis said in a news release announcing the bill.
DuPlessis said after he found out about the issue, he asked around and discovered it was not uncommon.
“We’re seeing it across the state,” he said. ‘It’s a bad problem.”
He said this bill is part of a comprehensive approach to tackling the opioid epidemic.
“It’s one of the abuses we’ve seen with opioids,” he said.
DuPlessis said the bill, which was referred to the Health and Family Services Committee, should receive a hearing this session. He said as more Kentuckians find out about it, supporting it is “a no brainer.”
House Bill 110 is the third bill DuPlessis filed during the first week of the regular session. He’s also working to limit terms of state lawmakers and to make a financial literacy course a graduation requirement.
The financial literacy bill is similar to the one state Sen. Dennis Parrett, D-Elizabethtown, filed in the senate. DuPlessis said his bill should receive a hearing this week.