Additionally, the doctors who testified only testified about their general course of practice and not what their course of practice was with regards to the specific patient/customers identified in the indictment.  Intuitively, the doctors must be somewhat specific for a jury to find that the drugs were distributed without a legitimate medical purpose and not in the usual course of professional practice (as a reminder, this is a pre Ryan Haight Act prosecution).

I will review these in greater detail this weekend, but I wanted to provide a status update to those that have inquired about the status of the AffPower trial.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

Soma is a federal non-controlled substance; consequently, Jennings is charged under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act (”FFDCA”) rather than the Controlled Substances Act and Ryan Haight Act amendment.  I have previously written extensively on non-controlled subtance internet pharmacy law issues associated with the FFDCA here.  As a brief summary, the FFDCA outlaws the misbranding of drugs.  A number of different actions qualify as misbranding, including the issuance of a prescription drug without a prescription.  Like many FFDCA cases, the Information in this case mistakenly states that “a prescription drug was misbranded when it is not dispensed pursuant to a valid prescription.”

Simply put, the FFDCA does not use the word valid.  Admittedly, it is up to a court to decide whether this is mere surplusage.  I question whether it is, however, given that the FFDCA uses the phrase “valid prescription” on other occasions in the same statute.  As a criminal defense attorney, I would be salivating at the opportunity to file a Motion to Dismiss in this case.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The Poindexter’s preliminary hearing began last Thursday in Lyons, Kansas.  They are charged under Kansas state law with operating an online questionnaire based Internet pharmacy.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

U.S. v. Hurwitz, 459 F.3d 463 (2006):  The Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Dr. William E. Hurtwitz’s conviction due to the trial court’s failure to instruct the jury on objective ”good faith.”  Hurwitz was convicted of one count of conspiracy, one count of drug trafficking resulting in death, two counts of drug trafficking resulting in serious bodily injury, and forty-six counts of drug trafficking.  The jury acquitted Hurtwitz on one count of engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise and two counts of health care fraud.

The evidence at trial suggested that a number of Hurtwitz’s patients were arrested for selling prescription drugs.  After identifying Hurtwitz as their source, investigators learned that Hurtwitz was prescribing extraordinarily high doses of opioids to his patients:

Hurtwitz often wrote prescriptions calling for a patient to take thirty 80-milligram Oxycontins per day.  For Hurtwitz’s patients in the high-dose program, a prescribed opioid dosage of 100 pills per day was not uncommon . . . Between July 1999 and October 2002, Hurwitz prescribed to one patient a total of more than 200,000 pills, which amounted to more than 400 pills per day . . . Patients with limited sources of income spent tens of thousands of dollars on narcotics prescribed by Hurtwitz.

Hurwitz argued that he was not a pill-pusher.  He required patients to fill out medical questionnaires and submit medical records.  Hurwitz also actively conferenced with other professionals with regards to the treatment of pain.  Additionally, the defense argued that the high-dose protocol was appropriate medical practice “for treating patients with intractable pain.”  Because the body quickly develops resistance to opioids, high doses become necessary to have any effect whatsoever.

The appellate court reversed Dr. Hurwitz’s conviction, because the trial court erred in failing to instruct the jury on “good faith.”  The Code of Federal Regulations states that a controlled substance prescription is effective only if it is “issued for a legitimate medical purpose by an individual practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice.”  The Appellate Court found that “a doctor’s good faith generally is relevant to a jury’s determination of whether the doctor acted outside the bounds of medical practice or without a legitimate medical purpose when prescribing narcotics.”  “Some latitude must be given to doctors trying to determine the current boundaries of acceptable medical practice.  Thus, courts have consistently concluded that it is proper to instruct juries that a doctor should not be held criminally liable if the doctor acted in good faith when treating his patients.”

In Internet pharmacy law prosecutions involving doctors, criminal defense attorneys should push for a good faith jury instruction.  The failure to instruct the jury on good faith was not harmless error in U.S. v. Hurwtiz.  It was important enough to require reversal, even in the light of arguably overwhelming evidence of guilt.  Thus, in many circuits, obtaining such instruction is a very realistic possibility.

Keep in mind that a good faith instruction is relevant even in post-Ryan Haight Act prosecutions.  Note that even though the Ryan Haight Act requires face to face medical examinations, the fact that a face to face examination is conducted is not per se compliance with the Controlled Substances Act.  The DEA Rule implementing the Ryan Haight Act specifically states that a court must still analyze whether the facts of each case suggest that the prescription was issued for a legitimate medical purpose and in the usual course of professional practice:

At the same time, it is crucial to bear in mind that, as Congress expressly stated under the Act, the mere fact that the prescribing practitioner conducted one in-person medical evaluation does not demonstrate that the prescription was issued for a legitimate medical purpose within the usual course of professional practice.  Even where the prescribing practitioner has complied with the requirement of at least one in-person medical evaluation, a prescription for a controlled substance must still satisfy the additional, fundamental prerequisite that has been legally mandated for more than 90 years:  it must be issued for a legitimate medical purpose by a practitioner acting in the usual course of professional practice.

Consequently, criminal defense lawyers should still request a good faith instruction even in criminal cases originating from post-Ryan Haight Act offenses.

Moreover, I would argue that a good faith instruction is required even in federal criminal cases in which the doctor is not indicted or prosecuted.  When a doctor involved in an online pharmacy operation is not indicted, the doctor’s good faith is still relevant.  For example, assume that the players in an online consultation service internet pharmacy are indicted, including the website owner and pharmacist.  However, for some reason or another, assume the doctor was not indicted.  I would still argue that the jury must be instructed on a doctor’s good faith.  Because the website owner or pharmacist can only be prosecuted if the prescription was invalid (i.e. it was issued by a doctor without a legitimate medical purpose or not in the course of a professional practice), the doctor’s good faith is still a relevant inquiry.  In other words, whether the pharmacist or website owner is guilty is largely dependant on the customer’s interaction with the physician.  If the prescription was objectively issued in good faith by a physician, then the pharmacist or website owner should not be convicted.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and Internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and Internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and Internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The indictment alleged that between March 2005 and December 2006, the two, along with Derrick Truby, conspired to distribute weight loss drugs via an online pharmacy without a legitimate medical purpose and outside the scope of professional practice.  The couple allegedly operated several internet pharmacy websites and required customers to fill out an online questionnaire in order to receive prescriptions.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and Internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

As I have discussed before, misbranding is essentially a catch all offense under the Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, which includes mislabeling, distributing drugs without a prescription and providing inappropriate warning information.  The Federal Food Drug and Cosmetic Act is utilized by the Government primarily in prosecutions for noncontrolled substances.  While the FFDCA is equally applicable to controlled substances, controlled substance distribution offenses are brought under the Controlled Substances Act.  For a background on noncontrolled substance Internet pharmacy law, click here.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and Internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

• writing “a very large number of prescriptions” for hydrocodone between November and February;
• writing prescriptions for “90 pills every time . . . This is exceedingly unusual and indicates the prescriptions are being issued without medical justification;”
• writing his residential address on the prescriptions, which “is highly unusual for a bona fide physician;”
• authorizing prescriptions filled by a Beverly Hills pharmacy called “House of Medicine;” and
• communicating (according to phone records) with online pharmacies, including USMeds.com.

Criminal charges have not been filed; however, Dr. Pfeiffer’s DEA registration was suspended.

Since the search warrant alleges that Pfeiffer’s last prescription was in February, the government will presumably have to proceed with a pre Ryan Haight Act based prosecution (if they do end up indicting him) under the unamended version of the Controlled Substances Act.  As I have noted previously, pre Ryan Haight Act Internet pharmacy law prosecutions can present a number of problems for prosecutors and opportunities for criminal defense attorneys.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The JIVE Internet pharmacy trial also began two weeks ago in the Middle District of Florida.  Both of these cases are pre-Ryan Haight Act prosecutions.  It is somewhat ironic that these trials will be in progress when the Ryan Haight Act (which attempts to criminalize the very actions for which most of these individuals are indicted) becomes effective next Monday.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

1.  Ryan Haight Act Effective Date:  The Rule confirms that the Ryan Haight Act becomes effective on April 13, 2009.  Most of the interim Rule also becomes effective on that date.  The Rule all but admits that the DEA was rushed to get the Rule out:

It is evident from the forgoing provision of the Act that Congress contemplated it would be necessary for the DEA to issue regulations on an interim basis in order to implement the Act within a relatively short time period . . . Indeed, Congress envisioned that DEA would need to issue interim rules “prior to its effective date” to effectively implement the new requirements of the Act.  Accordingly, the rules published here are effective immediately while at the same time the agency is seeking public comment on them.

The fact that they waited until one week prior to the Ryan Haight Online Pharmacy Consumer Protection Act’s effective date to publish the Rule is not surprising.  I imagine that the DEA had to carefully craft the Rule’s Ryan Haight Act summary to minimize the disturbance on pending federal criminal indictments.  In any event, the rushed nature of the Rule only serves to make Internet pharmacy law even more ambiguous.

2:  More Support That Pending Pre-Ryan Haight Internet Pharmacy Federal Indictments Are Invalid:  It is apparent from the Rule that the DEA and DOJ are still confused as to whether the lack of a doctor’s face-to-face medical examination prior to the issuance of a prescription is illegal before the effective date of the Ryan Haight Act.  A number of quotes from the Rule stand out:

The law becomes effective April 13, 2009.  Thus, as of April 13, 2009, it will be illegal under federal law to ‘deliver, distribute, or dispense a controlled substance by means of the Internet, except as authorized [by the CSA]‘ or to aid or abet such activity.

The Ryan Haight Act . . . makes it unlawful to “knowingly or intentionally deliver, distribute, or dispense a controlled substance by means of the Internet, except as authorized by the [the Act].

Here, the Act makes it unambiguous that, except in limited and specified circumstances, it is a per se violation of the CSA for a practitioner to issue a prescription for a controlled substance by means of the Internet without having conducted at least one in-person medical evaluation.

The Ryan Haight Act adds two new criminal offenses to the CSA.  The first new offense is set forth in 21 U.S.C. 841(h)(1), which states:  It shall be unlawful for any person to knowingly or intentionally deliver, distribute, or dispense a controlled substance by means of the Internet, except as authorized by [the CSA].

The use of the words “will,” “makes,” and “new” are, of course, nothing but supportive of my pre-Ryan Haight Act suspicions.  If the DOJ and lawmakers can’t figure it out, how can lay individuals be presumed to know, beyond a reasonable doubt, of their “illegal” activity?  

3.  The rule emphasizes the fact that an Internet pharmacy does not automatically shield itself from arrest and ultimately prosecution merely because it complies with the one face-to-face medical examination requirement of the Ryan Haight Act:

At the same time, it is crucial to bear in mind that, as Congress expressly stated under the Act, the mere fact that the prescribing practitioner conducted one in-person medical evaluation does not demonstrate that the prescription was issued for a legitimate medical purpose within the usual course of professional practice.  Even where the prescribing practitioner has complied with the requirement of at least one in-person medical evaluation, a prescription for a controlled substance must still satisfy the additional, fundamental prerequisite that has been legally mandated for more than 90 years:  it must be issued for a legitimate medical purpose by a practitioner acting in the usual course of professional practice.

A rogue Internet operation cannot, for example, defeat the purpose of the Act by establishing a method of operation in which a practitioner conducts a perfunctory in-person “evaluation” of each “patient” simply for the purpose of selling prescriptions for controlled substances to the patient in perpetuity with no follow-up visits. 

In other words, even if a doctor performs one face-to-face evaluation, the prescription still must be issued for a legitimate medical purpose and in the usual course of professional practice.  Thus, we are right back to square one: extreme ambiguity.  Congress and the DEA are saying follow this law but, if you do, you can still be convicted. 

4.  The Rule assumes pharmacies conducting business online can recognize that they are filling prescriptions not for a legitimate medical purpose and not in the usual course of professional practice merely based on the number of prescriptions they are filling relative to brick and mortar pharmacies that lack an online business component:

The small percentage of pharmacies who have so participated in these rogue Web site schemes have, in many cases, filled extraordinary numbers of prescriptions for controlled substances that dwarf the sales figures of walk-in pharmacies.

This is fallacious.  You can’t compare the prescription numbers of an Internet based pharmacy and a non-Internet based pharmacy.  The two have different customer bases and demographics.  Simply put, one has the ability to fill prescriptions for individuals nationwide, and the other has the ability to fill prescriptions for individuals within the local community.  In U.S. v. Fuchs, the government tried to offer a witness to testify as to prescription numbers.  Though dicta, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals implied that this was improper.

In short, this Rule provides more great ammunition for criminal defense lawyers involved in pre-Ryan Haight Act indictments and internet pharmacy law appeals.  I am looking forward to adding it to my future Motions to Dismiss and Internet Pharmacy Law Appellate Briefs.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The Government moved to dismiss after Judge Zloch refused to sentence Emmanuel Antonio and Theophilos Antoniou.  Specifically, the judge questioned whether their alleged conduct was indeed illegal. 

This is great news.  Finally, a court has implicitly accepted the “Ryan Haight Act criminal defense argument” that I have long been advocating.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The retrial of the remaining defendants was set to begin this month; however, the Government just filed a motion seeking to dismiss the indictment as to all remaining defendants.  What was the reason you ask?  According to the Motion, the reason was that the Government “became aware of facts that it did not previously possess.”

Additionally, the Government seeks to withdraw the guilty pleas of Defendants Emmanuel Antonio, Theophilos Antoniou, Eva Global, Inc., and Tropic Spiral Systems, Inc. for the same reasons.  These four defendants are very lucky.  The Government does not have to do that and, frankly, I can’t recall a case in which that has ever happened.  The prosecutors here were very honorable, put dispositions and zealous advocacy aside and tried to do what was right as a result of these “facts that [the government] did not previously possess.”

This just further supports my amazement when people blindly plead guilty to these pre-Ryan Haight Act internet pharmacy charges.  It is always a risk to go to trial, but, for the individuals that went to trial here, the risk paid off.  I’m obviously never going to dissuade someone who adamantly wants to plead guilty, but, in these pre-Ryan Haight Act internet pharmacy cases where the law is, at best, unclear, it just might not be in some individuals best interests.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

The Ryan Haight Act issue is, of course, not the only substantive legal issue within internet pharmacy law.  Indeed, online pharmacy law is particularly unique.  First, online pharmacy trials are generally very long.  Not only is there a lot of information presented, but there are also a lot of defendants (web site owners, affiliates, doctors, pharmacists, and pharmacies).  Most of the trials are 4-12 weeks long.  With a long trial, comes a long transcript.  Scouring through a long transcript to find sources of reversible error requires skill and experience.   Not only does an internet pharmacy trial contain the standard evidentiary error issues that any trial would have, it also is likely to contain a number of unique sources of reversible error such as:

1.  The ability for defendants to utilize the “advice of counsel” defense.  Some courts prevent defendants from arguing that their corporate or regulatory compliance attorney told them that internet pharmacies were legal.  An Appellate court will need to analyze this issue, if a criminal defendant is prevented from utilizing this defense at trial.

2.  In some trials, prosecutors seek to endorse experts to testify as to what a “legitimate medical purpose” or a “usual course of professional practice“ is with respect to a physician.  Whether this is appropriate, given the circumstances, will be up for an Appellate court to decide.

3.  The ability for the Government to qualify an expert to statistically compare pharmaceutical sales of a defendant pharmacy or pharmacists to a non-internet pharmacy located in a similarly situated neighborhood in order to prove knowledge on the part of the pharmacy.  In layman’s terms, the government attempts to prove that the pharmacist knew he or she was filling invalid prescriptions, because he or she was filling infinitely more prescriptions than a neighbor pharmacy.  The obvious fallacy here is that the defendant pharmacy has a greater market (i.e. the internet) than does the neighbor pharmacy (i.e. the immediately local geographical region).   For example see here.

Second, internet pharmacy law trials almost inevitably contain a number of rich, extensive, and complex substantive pre-trial legal issues, including:

1.  Ryan Haight Act argument.  If the Court denies a criminal defense attorney’s Ryan Haight Act Motion to Dismiss argument, an Appellate Court will need to review the decision.  For Pre-Ryan Haight Act prosecutions, this should be the most important aspect of an appellate brief, especially given the fact that Appellate Courts have yet to hear this issue.

2.  Motions to Suppress.  Many internet pharmacy cases involve some very complex 4th amendment issues, usually dealing with business records and computers.  Denials of Motions to Suppress evidence should take up a large portion of an appellate brief.

3.  Grand Jury Issues:  Some Circuits do not permit Grand Jury records to be disclosed to Defendants.  This is a potential source of constitutional error that can be raised on Appeal.

Given that Appellate Courts have yet to decide many of these fundamental issues, it is important that qualified and experienced counsel is utilized in internet pharmacy appeals.  What is necessary is to obtain a dedicated, knowledgeable, and experienced attorney to tackle these issues in front of any Appellate Circuit.  There are a lot of skillful appellate attorneys out there, but I think what is truly needed is someone who can educate and persuade these Appellate Courts on internet pharmacy law. An experienced appellate attorney with knowledge of internet pharmacy law from a criminal defense perspective, thus, is an absolute necessity.  I am gearing up and looking forward to doing just that. 

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

Hageseth’s case presented a number of interesting legal issues.  Most importantly, it involved the issue of jurisdiction.  Specifically, is a licensed Colorado physician who e-prescribes medication to individuals in California from his Colorado home or office  “practicing medicine in California?”  Hageseth had unsuccessfully argued that the Court lacked jurisdiction in a pretrial motion.  Had he not pled guilty, it would have been interesting to see what a jury might say.

A requirement that physicians must be licensed in the state in which the patient is located conflicts with the need for telemedicine, which is undeniably needed (especially in rural areas).  Keep in mind that even Medicare and Medicaid are encouraging the use of telemedicine and e-prescriptions.  Although I doubt it will happen, hopefully this Administration can work on developing a more coherent medical system in which licensing requirements and the need for telemedicine can coexist.  That sounds like a lot to ask for, however.  The Ryan Haight Act is evidence enough that the federal government might not be the best body to regulate the practice of medicine.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.

This was another federal pre Ryan Haight Act indictment and prosecution.  I understand that most individuals are risk averse and certainly respect these individuals’ decisions to plea and move on with their lives; however, the fact that most individuals continue to plead guilty to these “offenses” perplexes me.  Even if a Motion to Dismiss is unsuccessful, there are still a number of great legal and factual criminal defense arguments to present to a jury.

The content on this post does not constitute legal advice and is for informational purposes only.  You should not act upon the information presented on this website without seeking the advice of legal counsel.  Should you wish to speak to an experienced criminal defense lawyer knowledgeable in prescription, drug and internet pharmacy law, including the Controlled Substances Act, the Ryan Haight Act amendment and Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act violations, please feel free to contact me directly.