Freedom to Prescribe

The Concord Monitor published this opinion piece about a New Hampshire law banning the use of physician-specific prescription information for commercial purposes. The article encourages judges and lawmakers to uphold the ban, because selling prescription data makes it easier for pharmaceutical salespeople to pitch expensive or unnecessary drugs to doctors, who in turn pass on those costs to patients and taxpayers. Though I think I agree with the spirit of the law, I am unsure as to whether the piece's logic is sound. I don't see a need for physician-specific prescription information to be sold for commercial purposes, as long as that information is still made available for non-commercial uses. But I'm not sure how providing that prescription data unfairly benefits salespeople. Are doctors such idiots to be duped by their own prescription patterns? Can we pass a law banning other effective sales techniques, like courtesy? I agree with the conclusion but have serious problems with the argument.