Senate Bill No. 362
(By Senators Jenkins, Stollings, Tomblin (Mr. President), Barnes,
Edgell, Foster, Laird, Plymale, Prezioso and Palumbo)
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[Introduced January 27, 2010; referred to the Committee on the
Judiciary.]
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A BILL to amend and reenact §60A-4-410 of the Code of West
Virginia, 1931, as amended, relating to clarifying that it is
unlawful to provide misleading or false information to a
medical practitioner in order to obtain more than one
prescription for a controlled substance; and increasing
penalties.
Be it enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia:
That §60A-4-410 of the Code of West Virginia, 1931, as
amended, be amended and reenacted to read as follows:
ARTICLE 4. OFFENSES AND PENALTIES.
§60A-4-410. Prohibited acts -- Withholding information from
practitioner; additional controlled substances;
penalties.
(a) It is unlawful for a patient, with the intent to deceive,
and mislead or provide false information in order to obtain a
prescription for a controlled substance, to withhold information
from, or give false information to, a practitioner that the patient has obtained a prescription for a controlled substance of a similar
therapeutic use in a concurrent time period from another
practitioner.
(b) Any person who violates this section is guilty of a
misdemeanor and, upon conviction thereof, may be confined in the
county or regional jail for not more than six nine months, or fined
not more than one thousand dollars $2,500, or both fined and
imprisoned.
(c) The offense established by this section is in addition to
and a separate and distinct offense from any other offense set
forth in this code.
NOTE: The purpose of this is to clarify that the statute also
prohibits misleading or false information from being given to a
medical practitioner in order to obtain another prescription for a
controlled substance. The bill also increases the criminal
penalties.
Strike-throughs indicate language that would be stricken from
the present law, and underscoring indicates new language that would
be added