1-1  By:  Madla                                             S.B. No. 658
    1-2        (In the Senate - Filed February 20, 1995; February 21, 1995,
    1-3  read first time and referred to Committee on Health and Human
    1-4  Services; April 20, 1995, reported favorably by the following vote:
    1-5  Yeas 7, Nays 0; April 20, 1995, sent to printer.)
    1-6                         A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
    1-7                                AN ACT
    1-8  relating to the funding and operation of the program to aid certain
    1-9  impaired pharmacists and pharmacy students.
   1-10        BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
   1-11        SECTION 1.  Subsection (g), Section 27A, Texas Pharmacy Act
   1-12  (Article 4542a-1, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), is amended to
   1-13  read as follows:
   1-14        (g)  The board may add a surcharge of not more than $10 <$5>
   1-15  to a license or license renewal fee authorized under this Act to
   1-16  fund the program to aid impaired pharmacists or pharmacy students.
   1-17        SECTION 2.  Subsection (j), Section 27A, Texas Pharmacy Act
   1-18  (Article 4542a-1, Vernon's Texas Civil Statutes), as added by
   1-19  Section 21, Chapter 351, and Section 9, Chapter 789, Acts of the
   1-20  73rd Legislature, 1993, is conformed to read as follows:
   1-21        (j)  The board may disclose that the license of a pharmacist
   1-22  who is the subject of an order of the board that is confidential by
   1-23  Subsection (d) of this section is suspended, revoked, canceled,
   1-24  restricted, or retired or that the pharmacist is in any manner
   1-25  otherwise limited in the practice of pharmacy; however, the board
   1-26  may not disclose the nature of the impairment or other information
   1-27  that resulted in the board's action.
   1-28        SECTION 3.   This Act takes effect September 1, 1995, and
   1-29  applies only to a license issued or renewed by the Texas State
   1-30  Board of Pharmacy on or after that date.  A license issued or
   1-31  renewed before that date is governed by the law in effect on the
   1-32  date the license was issued or renewed, and the former law is
   1-33  continued in effect for that purpose.
   1-34        SECTION 4.  The importance of this legislation and the
   1-35  crowded condition of the calendars in both houses create an
   1-36  emergency and an imperative public necessity that the
   1-37  constitutional rule requiring bills to be read on three several
   1-38  days in each house be suspended, and this rule is hereby suspended.
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