Hales v. State

The majority court construes the Arkansas Controlled Substances Act so as to exclude from its proscriptions physicians who have unprofessionally and unlawfully prescribed a controlled substance to his or her patient. In doing so, the court reasons that the Act makes it unlawful for any person to deliver — rather than dispense or prescribe — controlled substances. Thus, even though the state prosecuting attorney showed at trial that the appellant, a physician, prescribed controlled drugs to patients who had no medical need for them (one patient had told the appellant that she planned to sell…