Pharmaceutical diversion involves the illegal use of legal prescription drugs. Prescription drugs are obtained through fraudulent/criminal means and then used for recreational purposes, traded for other illicit drugs, or sold for profit. Drug diversion can be highly profitable for traffickers, but convictions can carry serious penalties ranging up to life in prison.
Diversion Investigations
There are a wide variety of government agencies devoting resources to preventing drug offenses, including the FBI and the FDA, but the DEA is the driving force behind prosecutions. Inside the DEA is the Office of Diversion Control, which is totally focused on investigating the diversion of pharmaceuticals from legitimate sources.
DEA investigations have implicated doctors who overprescribe medications, physicians who sell prescriptions and pharmacists who falsify records to sell drugs illegally. Other means of diversion include employee theft and record falsification, armed robberies of pharmacies and drug distributers, and a wide variety of actions taken by individual patients. These deceptive and fraudulent diversion tactics can include the following:
- Faking medical conditions in order to obtain prescriptions
- Seeing multiple of health care professionals to obtain multiple prescriptions of the same drug concurrently
- Altering a legitimate prescription by changing the amount of pills or the number of refills
- Forging prescriptions by fabricating a prescription form
- Stealing prescription pads from doctors, emergency rooms, and clinics, and subsequently forging prescriptions
The penalties for pharmaceutical diversion and/or drug trafficking range from paying fines to lifetime prison sentences. The degree of the sentence depends on the quantity involved, prior offenses, and the type of drug involved. Every controlled substance is ranked on lists called Schedules, which determine the length of prison sentences associated with an individual drug.
Contact the Law Offices of Geoffrey G. Nathan
In their zeal to combat various addictions, law enforcement can trample the rights of the accused and falsely accuse innocent people. If you are a doctor, pharmacist, or patient who has been arrested for pharmaceutical diversion, Attorney Nathan can help. He has a proven record of success, and a deserved reputation as a top trial attorney. Contact the Law Offices of Geoffrey G. Nathan today to speak with an experienced Massachusetts pharmaceutical diversion attorney.