Doctor Convicted of Murder After Selling Prescription Painkillers

Posted by azdrugrehabctr on February 16, 2016 under Addiction Trends, Prescription Drugs | Comments are off for this article

The vast majority of doctors in the United States are committed to fighting the prescription painkiller epidemic. This is because the painkillers often originate out of offices in every state. Doctors either unknowingly write a prescription to a person who is falsifying their maladies, the patient with a legitimate problem sells their prescription to make money, or addicts steal the pills from people who have prescriptions. However, some addicts are able to exploit the system and find a doctor who is willing to write illegal prescriptions for a hefty cost. This was apparently the case with Dr. Hsiu-Ying “Lisa” Tseng.

Tseng was a doctor out of Rowland Heights, a suburb of Los Angeles. The DEA began their investigation after it was discovered that the doctor had written 27,000 prescriptions for narcotic drugs over a period of three years. This means that she averaged 25 prescriptions a day. Despite her lawyer’s claims that Tseng was naïve and had no idea that her patients were abusing the medications, it appears that Tseng was responsible for twelve deaths among her patients. Due to additional reasons for death, like prescription from other doctors and a possible suicide, Tseng was only convicted of three deaths. For her part, Tseng received a thirty year to life sentence.

“(She’s) a person who seemingly did not care about he lives of her patients in this case but rather appeared more concerned about distributing dangerous controlled substances in an assembly line fashion so as to collect payments which amounted to her amassing several million dollars,” commented George Lomeli, the Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge that presided over the case.

This landmark case is intended to show other doctors who may be engaging in the same behavior that they will be prosecuted for the laws they break and the trust they violate. Additionally, doctors who may be suspicious of their patient’s need for prescription drugs are likely to take this case into account when determining the best course of action. Illustrating to the medical community that there are repercussions for the over egregious violations of over-prescribing of narcotics is an important step when it comes to lowering the amount of painkillers available to addicts.