Let’s be frank about what’s fair for Tiger Woods.

Police in Jupiter, Fla., reported the arrest Monday of the former No. 1 pro golfer for driving while under the influence of drugs or alcohol.

Officers said they observed a black Mercedes-Benz stopped in the road with its brake lights and right blinker flashing, and Woods asleep behind the wheel.

Woods was groggy. His speech was slurred. He failed a field sobriety test. But two breathalyzer tests showed Woods had a blood-alcohol level of zero.

Woods later explained he’d had an unexpected reaction to prescription drugs, including the opioid painkiller Vicodin he was taking for recent back surgery.

Since 2009, Florida has had a prescription drug registry and monitoring program, It’s similar to the program Pennsylvania started on Jan. 1.

The monitoring programs have a heavy stress on personal privacy, so there would be no disclosure available as to whether Woods’ Vicodin prescription is included on the state registry, which goes by the name E-FORCSE. However, it would be a serious violation if it were not reported, not only by the prescribing doctor but also by the pharmacy that filled the prescription.

How many regular people in Pennsylvania and other states are routinely driving vehicles while taking Vicodin and other strong medications? The answer is we don’t know, even with a new registry. The data is considered PHI — protected health information under the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.

But do HIPAA mandates defeat the purpose of prescription monitoring?

We don’t think so. The safety of others on the highway supersedes the right of anyone to drive. That’s why driving is restricted in the first place — it’s not a right, but a privilege. Drivers must be trained, tested, licensed and insured before they are extended the privilege to navigate the right of way.

With an opioid in his system, Woods should not have been operating a vehicle. That’s a DUI violation. Yet every day, patients just like him drive to and from their local pharmacy to pick up prescriptions of powerful painkillers that make them ineligible to drive, whether or not they realize or admit it.

Prescription drug monitoring programs give states like Florida and Pennsylvania the technical capability to keep some of these drivers off the road.

According to the Health Department, the monitoring program has two objectives:

n To increase the quality of patient care by giving prescribers and dispensers access to a patient’s controlled substance prescription medication history, which will alert medical professionals to potential dangers for purposes of making treatment determinations.

n To aid regulatory and law enforcement agencies in the detection and prevention of fraud, drug abuse and the criminal diversion of controlled substances.

The second objective mandates public safety — which includes prevention of drug-related DUIs.

It only makes sense and should be routine procedure for the state to suspend the driver’s licenses of people who are prescribed these medications.

We can’t think of a good reason why this should not be routine procedure.

It’s already routine for doctors to advise patients that they cannot drive while taking these powerful prescriptions. It’s routine for pharmacists to do the same.

For a state that’s able to track prescription drug use, it should be a simple matter to suspend a license — and reactivate it again — as patients go on and off prescription drugs.

The General Assembly should strongly consider amending the law to set dosage thresholds and automatically suspend the driver’s license of any person who is prescribed opioid medications at or above the threshold dose, for the duration of the prescription.