SAVING THE PILLMILLIONAIRES –

Sept 19, 2022 – Previously, lower courts had not considered a prescriber’s intention. Until now, doctors on trial largely could not defend themselves by arguing they were acting in good faith when they wrote bad prescriptions. Now they can, attorneys say, although it is not necessarily a get-out-of-jail-free card.

“Essentially, the doctors were handcuffed,” said Zach Enlow, Onaro’s attorney. “Now they can take off their handcuffs. But it doesn’t mean they are going to win the fight.”

The Supreme Court’s decision in Ruan v. United States, issued June 27, was overshadowed by the nation-shaking controversy ignited three days earlier, when the court erased federal abortion rights. But the lesser-known ruling is now quietly percolating through federal courthouses, where it has emboldened defendants in overprescribing cases and may have a chilling effect on future prosecutions of doctors under the Controlled Substances Act.

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