In October of 2015, a jury convicted a physician of second degree murder for over-prescribing a drug that resulted in a fatal overdose for three patients. People v. Tseng is the first conviction of a physician for murder due to over-prescribing, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that physicians are a significant contributor to the 17,000 plus opioid overdose deaths a year.
After the conviction, in February of 2016, Dr. Tseng was sentenced to 30 years to life in prison for the fatalities due to over-prescription. Although this was the first conviction of its kind, the prosecution of physicians for reckless or intentional over-prescription of certain types of drugs is significantly increasing. An example of the new focus, early in 2016, the White House proposed a $1.1 billion initiative to combat the prescription opioid and heroin use problem.
In the Tseng conviction, the physician had prior incidents of over-prescribing and all three individuals purposefully sought her out for the prescriptions. While she maintains that she was relatively untrained in opioid based prescriptions, thus leading to the over-prescribing, she is not eligible for parole for 30 years.
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