In wake of dropped case, prescribers may be less likely to be prosecuted

Abstract

In 2019, a federal grand jury indicted a pharmaceutical distributor, Ohio-based Miami-Luken Inc., two former officials, and two pharmacists with conspiring to distribute controlled substances. But in August 2022, the Department of Justice dismissed four of the indictments and vacated the previously entered guilty plea for the fifth. The reason was because of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Ruan (see Supreme Court rejects standard underlying prosecutions of opioid prescribers, ADAW July 11, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33491), which determined that in order to be found guilty of distributing controlled substances illegally, prescribers needed to be proven to have an intent to do so.