Doctor’s conviction of prescribing 500,000 doses of opioids in two years thrown out

A Virginia doctor who prescribed more than 500,000 doses of opioids over a two year period has had his conviction and 40 year prison term thrown out as the jury instructions in his trial misstated the law.

The 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia has ordered that Joel Smithers have a new trial.

Smithers has been accused of writing over 500,000 opioid pescriptions over two years, working out at over 100 a day.

Overprescription of painkillers is one of the main causes of the US's opioid crisis. Nearly 645,000 people died in the United States from overdoses involving opioids from 1999 to 2021, including 80,411, in 2021 alone, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Prosecutors claim that Smithers prescribed controlled substances including fentanyl, hydromorphone, oxycodone and oxymorphone to every patient who was under his care.

They say that a majority of patients would travel hundreds of miles each way to see Smithers, who collected over $700,000 in cash and card payments in the two years his medical office was open. He didn't accept insurance as a way to pay.

It's common for addicts to pay in cash for opioid prescriptions, and are willing to travel beyond reasonable distances to obtain them.

Jurors convicted Smithers in 2019, but a Supreme Court decision in 2022 gave precedent that meant the crime of prescribing controlled substances required a defendant to "knowingly or intentionally" act in an unauthorized manner, something that wasn't discussed in the original court case.

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