About 30 million prescriptions and orders are written each year for controlled substances. It is not precisely known how many of these prescriptions and orders are diverted illegally, but it is known that these controlled substances account for more than 30% of all deaths and injuries associated with drug abuse. Hydromorphone is in this group of controlled substances, a group that also includes codeine, methadone, hydrocodone, oxycodone, and amphetamine. The profitability of selling these prescription drugs is high. Even at market value, most of these drugs only cost pennies per unit to buy but are sold for several times that value on the street.

The DEA currently believes that physicians and pharmacists are the primary forces that allow this criminal behavior to occur. It is their easy access to these controlled substances that creates a pipeline of drug distribution to criminals who sell them on the...