Question for lawyer types: In season 3 of the TV show House, opioid-addicted Dr. House is brought to trial because he fraudulently acquired some oxycodone intended for a patient at his hospital. House presented a valid prescription written for the patient to the pharmacy. The pharmacist, unaware that the patient had recently died, gave the oxycodone to House, who proceeded to take the pills himself.
At trial, House’s boss testified that she had switched the pills so that House actually got a bottle of placebos rather than actual oxycodone. As a result of this testimony, the judge dismissed the case. (The boss’s testimony was a lie, but that fact doesn’t affect my question.)
The show didn’t make it very clear exactly what crime House was accused of. I guess there must be a law against fraudulently acquiring prescription medication intended for another person. But is there actually no crime if the medication is a placebo rather than what the accused thought it was? He still presented a prescription to a pharmacist with the intent to acquire medication intended for someone else, even if he (granting the boss’s testimony) failed to do so. The show takes place in New Jersey, in case the jurisdiction matters.
Prescription drug fraud is hardly an obscure crime; for example in the New Jersey statutes there is Section 2C:35-13
It shall be unlawful for any person to acquire or obtain possession of a controlled dangerous substance or controlled substance analog by misrepresentation, fraud, forgery, deception or subterfuge…
Forging a prescription (it definitely wasn’t a “valid” prescription at that point, but, if it was, then he is guilty of stealing someone else’s drugs) is fraud already, regardless of what was in the pills.
Switching someone’s pills sounds like a (possible) separate crime, not one committed by House.
Most states make such opioid-prescribing crimes felonies, but some have a special misdemeanor charge when prescribers do it; it allows them to get arrested, get into treatment, and get well and not automatically lose their license due to a felony. Repeating such behavior often results in license loss, or felony charges, though.
And yes, I know this stuff firsthand. Avoided felony charges, had misdemeanor charges dropped after lengthy monitoring.
I have a friend who was an ICU nurse, they had a nurse on the floor get busted in a toilet stall with an IV inserted and a banana bag of fentanyl hung on the hook of the door, completely on the nod. Bag clearly marked with the intended patient. That person did not lose their job but I bet the scrutiny was microscopic.
Nope! But he peed in so many cups he probably choked the Amazon on his own and couldn’t touch any of the fun addictive stuff, had to have another nurse do all those meds. I like to think all the best Codes Brown were reserved for him.
I think what’s even worse are the nurses who snake a syringe full out of IV med bags, that’s real trashy to endlessly short change sick people on pain meds.