If you are arrested for illegal prescription drug use or distribution and think it’s not a major crime, think again. The illegal possession of pharmaceutical drugs carries a hefty penalty. In FL, the state prosecutes drug cases, no matter the size, to the fullest extent of the law.
If you are arrested for this, it is crucial your defense lawyer investigates every aspect of your case. Checking if the police actually had sufficient evidence to arrest you, or if they conducted an illegal search and seizure. In many cases, the pharmaceutical drugs people are busted with, turn out to be prescribed legally.
With the abuse of prescription pain killers increasing, so has law enforcement’s crackdown. And they are adding strict punishments. The laws regarding these illegal prescription drugs are stringent. This includes heavy fines to go along with prison time. For years, people thought you could only get in trouble for serious drug offenses. Well, law enforcement is out to prove that illegally using, or illegally selling, prescription drugs is just as serious.
No longer are fatal drug overdoses involving only hardcore drugs, such as cocaine or heroin. With prescription drugs easy to obtain, legally and illegally, the drug war has moved out of the urban areas and into the suburbs.
This all means a major increase in prescription drug arrests. It’s making law enforcement reevaluate the nation’s policies on drug trafficking also. For decades, the main goal of America’s War on Drugs was to stop well-known “street drugs” from crossing the border. Now, the worry is that prescription drug flow is harder to control.
