Prescribing a Controlled Substance to an Addict – Health & Safety Code 11156
This usually comes about when a doctor or one of the doctor's employees prescribes some narcotic or controlled substance to a person that they know or reasonably should know, is an addict and is only obtaining the drug because they are addicted versus that they need the drug for some sort of a legitimate medical purpose.
Sometimes, it's a scenario where someone does something illegal or tricks the doctor or their staff to obtain these prescribed medications, or other times, if the doctor is in on it or the staff is in on it and allows this person to abuse medication, in this circumstance, not only would the person abusing the medication be subject to criminal prosecution, the doctor would as well or their staff or anybody that's involved with providing an addict with narcotics.
Loss of Medical License
This is a grave offense. Many doctors who are charged with these types of violations—particularly Health & Safety Code Section 11156—could lose their medical license. There would be an administrative disciplinary hearing, and the person would face a criminal charge.
Prosecutors and judges don't take kindly to medical professionals abusing their power and position of trust and taking advantage of somebody who has an addiction or not looking out for someone who has an addiction. So, they would be very loathed not to punish that person with jail or prison time.
So, if you've got one of these cases and you're looking at criminal prosecution, sometimes there's more than meets the eye. Sometimes, a person doesn't have all the information about what happened.
Maybe the doctor was tricked, or the person did something deceptive — stole something to obtain the prescription or the drugs, which is not uncommon — especially when someone's addicted.
They're desperate, and they will do all sorts of different things in trying to get drugs and sometimes dragging the doctor or their medical staff in when they don't know.
So, it's one thing not to know, or there's no evidence that you knew. However, it's still another thing that the prosecutors can argue that you reasonably should have known the person had an addiction and was only getting the prescribed medication because of an addiction versus some real medical reason.
Shopping Multiple Doctors to Obtain Prescription Drugs
That's going to lie upon whatever evidence is available to the prosecutors. Do you have medical records? You should have checked the computer system, where you should see that this particular person should not be prescribed any further medication.
Sometimes people are shopping to multiple doctors, and so, if there's no tracking system to find that, then obviously, the doctor would potentially have a defense that they didn't know or reasonably shouldn't have known this person was an addict and was abusing the medication they were obtaining from that particular person.
So, many of these cases are dealt with on a case-by-case basis. Common sense is going to be used, and obviously, the individual involved — if they genuinely didn't know that the addict was getting prescriptions or drugs that they shouldn't have, then they would have a built-in defense.
This is why I always suggest not speaking with law enforcement about it. Suppose you're contacted by law enforcement, or you believe you're going to be contacted related to some prescription fraud or some sort of an issue about providing narcotics to an addict. In that case, you should pick up the phone, make the call, and speak to a drug crime attorney before anything.