Pill Presses: Harmless Ecommerce Gig Or Drug Trafficking Paraphernalia?

If drug users are creative enough, almost anything can be drug paraphernalia.  Everyone has a friend of a friend who turned an apple into a pipe for smoking weed.  If you are making pot brownies, then a box of Betty Crocker brownie mix from the dollar store is drug paraphernalia. Pill presses are different.  Unlike when police find a single syringe or a single pipe in someone’s possession, pill presses do not raise suspicions of consumption of illegal drugs on an individual level.  In fact, the DEA requires anyone who sells pill presses to report the sale.  If you own a pill press, or if you operate an ecommerce store where pill presses are part of your product line, you might be worried about getting investigated for a drug trafficking operation that you know nothing about.  If law enforcement has contacted you about your pill press-related business activities, contact a Tampa drug crime lawyer.

What Are Pill Presses, and Why Are They Such a Problem?

Modern pill presses were first invented in 1843, and these have resulted in the production of pills that are much easier to swallow than their pre-modern counterparts.  They form powder into a tablet that holds its shape until a consumer swallows it.  Thus, even though they are mostly used for pharmaceutical pills, they also have applications in the manufacture of dietary supplements and breath mints.  Today, approximately two thirds of the medication doses dispensed to outpatients by prescription are in the form of pills, known in pharmacy terminology as oral solid doses.

Counterfeit prescription pills are a major contributor to overdose deaths.  These pills look like oxycodone, Adderall, and other prescription pills, but since they are not made by the licensed manufacturers of the prescription drugs, there is no way to guarantee their ingredients.  70 percent of the counterfeit pills seized by the DEA last year contained fentanyl, which can be fatal even in small doses.  According to the DEA, most of these pills in the U.S. drug supply come from Mexico, but the pill presses used in their manufacture come from U.S. ecommerce sites.  It is possible to buy a pill press online for about $40.

If law enforcement contacts you about your pill press or your ecommerce business, it is against the law to ignore their communications or to lie about your activities.  You do, however, have the right to hire a criminal defense lawyer to represent you, even if you have not been charged with a crime.  Your lawyer can advise you about which documents and records you must provide.  With or without representation by a lawyer, you have the right to plead the Fifth Amendment if you reasonably fear that answering truthfully would cause you to face criminal charges.

Contact Tampa Criminal Defense Attorney Bryant Scriven

A criminal defense lawyer can help you if you are under investigation for activities related to a pill press.  Contact Scriven Law in Tampa, Florida to schedule a consultation.

Source:

hightimes.com/news/dea-cracks-down-on-internet-pill-press-sales/