North Carolina Public Health Law

This bulletin discusses the history of the evolution of smoking laws in North Carolina, the smoking prohibitions that apply now and after new legislation goes into effect, and the expanded authority of local governments to regulate smoking within their jurisdictions.

This Bulletin summarizes legislation enacted by the 2006 North Carolina General Assembly in key fields of environmental health practice, including drinking water, on-site wastewater, food and lodging, and childhood lead poisoning.

During the 2005 legislative session, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted more than sixty bill and budget special provisions affecting public health, government health insurance, health care facilities, and the health care professions.This Bulletin summarizes significant 2005 legislation affecting North Carolina's public health system. it concludes with a summary of funding provided for public health initiatives in the state's 2005-2007 biennial budget.

This outline summarizes SL 2004-80, which amended NC public health laws pertaining to communicable disease and bioterrorism, due process for persons subject to certain isolation or quarantine orders, and confidentiality of local health department records.

This issue of the Health Law Bulletin summarizes the Public Health Bioterrorism Act of 2002 (SL 2002-179). A summary is below:

In the aftermath of the anthrax letter attacks of 2001, the nation faced a grim new reality: the knowledge that there are terrorists with the will and the ability to use biological weapons against civilians in the United States. Twenty-three people contracted anthrax from the letter attacks; five of those died. The numbers may seem small when compared with the September 11 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing, or other terrorist acts on U.S. soil, but the impact on local and state public health systems was huge. The experience exposed the strengths and weaknesses of the laws that support public health systems and showed how those laws can permit—or prevent—a rapid and appropriate response to a health threat caused by biological, chemical, or nuclear terrorism. (For brevity, the remainder of this bulletin will use the term bioterrorism to describe terrorism using nuclear, biological, or chemical agents. NBC agents will be the shorthand term for the three categories of agents.) In the fall of 2002, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted a new law that more clearly defined the role of public health in responding to bioterrorism (S.L. 2002-179, hereinafter called the 2002 Bioterrorism Act). The new law supplements, but does not replace, older public health laws.