Articles Posted in Drug Crimes

Despite the obvious and incomprehensibly expensive failure of the war on drugs, the United States government continues to expend time, resources and of course, money into making more and more drugs illegal. This time, the targets of the government are synthetic stimulants, or “bath salts”, and synthetic marijuana, or “fake pot.” The vote in the House of Representatives could happen any time, and the new bill making the two substances illegal is expected to pass without a problem. The new law would allow up to 20 years in prison for people who distribute small quantities of the bath salts or fake pot. In addition to the upcoming federal ban, many states, including Florida, have enacted similar laws making bath salts and fake pot illegal.

A new study found that traffic fatalities declined in states that legalized medical marijuana. The study looked at the relationship among marijuana laws, alcohol consumption and traffic-related deaths. The results were an almost 9% decline in traffic fatalities and a 5% decline in beer sales in states that legalized medical marijuana. These results are in direct contradiction to people who were concerned that legalizing medical marijuana would result in more drivers impaired from drugs and more traffic deaths.

The study looked at 13 states that legalized marijuana from 1990 – 2009. In those states, alcohol consumption was reduced for people in their 20’s, whose leading cause of death is traffic accidents. In 2009, alcohol-impaired driving contributed to about one-third of all fatal motor vehicle accidents. Reducing fatal accidents by 9% by legalizing medical marijuana would make a significant impact in the number of young people killed in motor vehicle crashes.

As pain pill or pill mill cases become much more prevalent in Florida, one issue that we have looked at quite often is a person’s privacy rights in his/her pharmacy and medical records. In Florida, a person has clear privacy rights in his/her medical records. It requires a court order for the police or another party to see a person’s medical records, and there must be a legitimate legal basis to do so. However, pharmacy records are much different. There is much less protection for pharmacy records relating to prescription narcotics. In some cases, a police officer can go to a pharmacy and request a person’s prescription records without a search warrant or court order and without the patient ever being notified of the police search. The police officer merely has to tell the pharmacy that he/she is working on a criminal case, and the pharmacy records of controlled substance prescriptions become an open book.

In many cases, this issue comes up in relation to doctor shopping charges- where a person is suspected of going to different doctors in a short time period to get similar pain pill prescriptions without informing the doctors that he/she went to the other doctor for the same purpose. The police may then go to the pharmacies where the person is filling the prescriptions for evidence of the doctor shopping crime.

Florida law allows the police to just walk into the pharmacy and obtain records of prescriptions for controlled substances when the police officer says he/she is working on a criminal case, or in other words, just about any time a police officer feels it is remotely relevant to a criminal investigation. The very limited privacy protection prevents the police officer from obtaining pharmacy records in this way of prescriptions for drugs that are not controlled substances.

There are a few different kinds of drug crimes in Florida. Simple possession is typically the least serious drug crime, and trafficking is the most serious. In between the two, possession with intent to sell illegal drugs is still a very serious felony crime. The crime is often associated with the suspect being within a certain distance of a public park or school. For the most part, prosecutors and judges look for more serious sentences when they believe a defendant was selling, or intending to sell, an illegal drug rather than just using it.

What evidence is required to prove possession with intent to sell an illegal drug in Florida? Sometimes, the police will try to use the quantity of the drug found on the suspect as the primary, or only, evidence that the defendant intended to sell the drug. This may be allowed under Florida law if the amount of the drugs was so significant, no reasonable person would believe it was for personal use. For instance, if the police find a person with a couple of bricks of crack cocaine, that would probably be sufficient for a possession with intent to sell crack cocaine charge. However, when the quantity does not obviously indicate the drugs are for sale rather than personal use, the state must present other evidence that the drugs were for sale.

In a recent case south of Jacksonville, Florida, the police responded to a park where people were allegedly selling crack cocaine. Ultimately, they arrested the defendant who was found carrying a bag with about 50 crack rocks inside. The defendant was arrested for possession of crack cocaine with intent to sell within 1,000 feet of a public park.

Over the last several years, we have seen a significant increase in the number of arrests of people in Florida for possession, sale and trafficking involving prescription narcotics like Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, Roxycontin and Oxycontin. These drug crimes involving prescription pills have increased at a much greater rate than the more traditional drug crimes involving marijuana, cocaine, heroin and crack.

The prescription pill criminal cases come in many forms. One area that has been more difficult for the police to detect is referred to as doctor shopping. A common approach by people looking for prescription painkillers like Hydrocodone and Oxycodone is to set up multiple appointments with different doctors, complain of pain and get prescriptions for pain pills from each doctor. Of course, the patient does not tell each doctor that he is seeing the other ones for the same purpose of getting the pain pill prescriptions. The patient then gets the prescriptions from the various doctors, fills them at different drug stores and obtains a large quantity of pills to use and/or re-sell. This was difficult for the doctors, pharmacists and the police to detect because there was no way for one doctor to know if a patient has seen a similar doctor recently and received a similar prescription unless the patient disclosed that information.

As a result, Florida made it illegal to go to multiple doctors within a 30 day period and get similar pain pill prescriptions without telling the doctors of the patient’s visit(s) to the other doctor(s). This is called doctor shopping, and it has become a felony crime in Florida. However, this relatively new law did not make it any easier for police or doctors to catch people doctor shopping. The police would only solve such a crime if they found the various prescriptions or pill bottles with the different doctors’ names and dates or otherwise came across this information, which was unlikely.

Normally in Florida, when the government plans to make something illegal, whether it is certain conduct by a person or possession of some new drug the government is afraid of, the Florida legislature will come up with a new criminal law. Congress does the same thing on the federal level. However, the DEA has authority to ban certain substances on a more immediate and temporary basis if the DEA determines the substance is dangerous. The DEA has recently acted to ban certain “bath salts”, more particularly known as mephedrone, methylone and 3,4 methyleneoxypyrovalerone. These “bath salts” have become more popular in Florida over the last couple of years. They are known by the more common names of Vanilla Sky, Ivory Wave and Bliss.

The DEA ban classifies the “bath salts” as Schedule I controlled substances and makes it illegal to possess or sell these “bath salts” for at least a year. During the time of the temporary ban, the DEA is supposed to study the substances to determine if they are dangerous and a permanent ban is appropriate. The DEA is concerned that these “bath salts” may cause extreme paranoia and violent episodes among other side effects. While the DEA does have authority to ban potentially dangerous drugs more quickly than Congress and state legislatures, the problem the DEA has is they must specifically identify which substances are being banned. However, the people making these drugs can quickly manufacture new, derivative substances not covered by the ban and essentially outrun the DEA’s efforts.

Over the last several years in Florida, drug cases involving pills such as Hydrocodone, Oxycodone, Roxycontin and other pain pills have become much more prevalent as opposed to more traditional drug crimes involving marijuana, cocaine, crack and heroin.

In a recent trafficking on Oxycodone case south of Jacksonville, Florida, the police searched the defendant and found two prescription pill bottles clearly labeled to contain Oxycodone. The pill bottles were also labeled with the defendant’s name on the prescription. Because the total weight of the Oxycodone pills in the two pill bottles was greater than 4 grams, the Oxycodone pills exceeded the weight necessary to warrant a trafficking charge. While the pills were in clearly marked prescription bottles, the police officer determined that the prescriptions were excessive- one bottle indicated a prescription for the defendant for 160 thirty milligram Oxycodone pills filled on April 7, 2010, and the other bottle indicated a prescription for 224 thirty milligram Oxycodone pills filled on April 9, 2010. The two separate prescriptions for Oxycodone were apparently written by two different doctors that were each unaware the defendant went to the other doctor for the prescription because the defendant never told either doctor she was seeing the other doctor for the same purpose.

A valid prescription for pills such as Hydrocodone from a licensed doctor written in the normal course of business is a defense to the charge of possession of, or trafficking in, pills. However, the state argued that because the defendant was engaged in doctor shopping- going to two different doctors in a short period of time to get prescription pills from each without informing the doctors of each other- the prescriptions were not given in the normal course of business so the legal prescription defense does not apply.

I saw an amazing statistic in an article about the number of people arrested on drug crimes in the United States last year. By “amazing”, I mean hopelessly pathetic and extremely wasteful and expensive. According to the statistics, more than 1.6 million people were arrested on drug offenses in 2010, which equates to a drug arrest every 19 seconds- all day, every day last year. While some might assume, or at least hope, that most of these drug arrests involved more serious drugs like heroin, methamphetamine and cocaine, more than half of these drug arrests involved marijuana. And the overwhelming majority of marijuana arrests were for simple possession of marijuana as opposed to sale or trafficking in marijuana.

These 2010 numbers represent a slight increase in drug arrests from 2009 but a more than 8% increase from ten years ago. Another disturbing aspect of these high drug arrest numbers is that incidents of other crimes have decreased. Violent crimes such as murder and robbery as well as property crimes such as theft and burglary have all decreased in the same time period these drug arrests have reached all time highs. People in the United States continue to be arrested for drug crimes more than any other crime. However, with this War on Drugs being waged for over 40 years, it is hard to see how any of this is having a beneficial effect on this country. On the other hand, it is easy to see how incredibly expensive and wasteful it continues to be.

As criminal defense lawyers in the Jacksonville, Florida and North Florida area, we have seen a significant increase in the number of criminal cases involving pain clinics and pain management practices throughout Florida and South Georgia. State and federal law enforcement officials have been very active in raiding any medical practices they believe are illegally dispensing pain medication and narcotics in violation of the law and without following the proper medical procedures. They are also arresting doctors and owners of pain clinics for operating these pain clinics without the proper license from the Florida Department of Health. When the police or Drug Enforcement Agency officials raid and search these pain clinics, they often arrest everyone associated with the medical facility, including employees, doctors and owners. They also often seize any assets of value at the medical practice including records, equipment, money and vehicles.

Recently, local police raided another doctor’s office in Maclenny, Baker County, Florida and charged several people with prescription fraud. Police allege that the people arrested at the doctor’s office would provide prescriptions for pain medications for cash without having them examined by the doctor. Police alleged that some of the patients who received the prescription drugs illegally ultimately overdosed.

Pain management facilities have been around for many years, and they provide a valuable service to people dealing with chronic and acute pain. However, law enforcement officials, particularly in Florida, believe that some pain clinics are starting up that are providing pain pills to people who are not being properly examined by a doctor and do not medically need the pills. They refer to these places as pill mills as they allegedly see many patients a day and provide prescription pain medication to anyone for a small fee.