Prescription Crimes in Pennsylvania
Not all drug crimes involve back-alley dealings and hard-core street narcotics. Prescription fraud is also a serious offense. Yet people all too often assume that a controlled substance crime is somehow less serious because it involves a drug with legitimate medical uses. Nevertheless, drug offenses involving prescribed pills have emerged as a growing problem to which authorities are increasingly turning their attention.
The PA Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act goes far beyond common street drugs like heroin, marijuana, cocaine and meth. It also covers a wide array of commonly prescribed drugs with legitimate medical uses and criminalizes a number of acts relating to their dissemination:
- Being in possession of any controlled prescription drug without having been prescribed the drug by a licensed physician
- Obtaining prescription drugs from a licensed dispensary using a forged or otherwise fraudulent prescription
- As a physician, prescribing or dispensing controlled drugs to someone he or she knows or should know to be a drug-dependent person
- As a physician, prescribing or dispensing controlled drugs outside the doctor-patient relationship or outside of responsible treatment standards
- As a physician or dispenser, failing to keep required records
Prescription drug crimes, a serious problem in Berks County, carry serious consequences. Possessing such a controlled prescription substance without a valid prescription is punishable in a similar manner as any street drug in accordance to the appropriate schedule. You need to take any such charges seriously and contact an experienced Reading area criminal defense attorney as soon as possible.
