Section 19 Prescription; restrictions on issuance - Massachusetts Statutes

Section 19. (a) A prescription for a controlled substance to be valid shall be issued for a legitimate medical purpose by a practitioner acting in the usual course of his professional practice. The responsibility for the proper prescribing and dispensing of controlled substances shall be upon the prescribing practitioner, but a corresponding responsibility shall rest with the pharmacist who fills the prescription. An order purporting to be a prescription issued not in the usual course of professional treatment or in legitimate and authorized research is not a prescription within the meaning and intent of section one and the person knowingly filling such a purported prescription, as well as the person issuing it, shall be subject to the penalties provided by sections thirty-two, thirty-two A, thirty-two B, thirty-two C, thirty-two D, thirty-two E, thirty-two F, thirty-two G, and thirty-two H, as applicable.

(b) No prescription shall be issued in order for a practitioner to obtain controlled substances for supplying the practitioner for the purpose of general dispensing to patients.

(c) Unless permitted by federal law, a prescription shall not be issued for the dispensing of drugs or controlled substances as defined in section thirty-eight of chapter one hundred and twenty-three, listed in any schedule to a drug dependent person for the purpose of continuing his dependence upon such drugs, in the course of conducting an authorized clinical investigation pursuant to an addict rehabilitation program.