Ruan posed to bear fruit for more liberal prescribing

Abstract

The unanimous ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court this summer which heralded possible liberalization of opioid and other controlled substance prescribing appears to be bearing fruit. Fewer physicians, based on mainly off‐the‐record interviews and comments, are afraid of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in the wake of the Supreme Court's ruling on Ruan v. United States, in which two physicians had been accused of running “pill mills.” The basis of the ruling was that physicians should have a defense based on good faith (see Supreme Court rejects standard underlying prosecutions of opioid prescribers, ADAW July 11, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adaw.33491). According to the opinion, in order to convict a prescriber for unauthorized distribution of a controlled substance, the government must use a subjective standard that the physician knowingly believed he or she was unlawfully distributing drugs.