Are the DEA and the Medical’Pharmacy Board Working Together
Yes. The coordination is established, systematic, and more comprehensive than most practitioners recognize when they encounter either agency independently.
The relationship between the DEA’s Diversion Control Division and state medical and pharmacy licensing boards is not casual or occasional. It is a structured coordination built on data-sharing agreements, referral protocols, and parallel proceeding strategies that the two enforcement frameworks have developed over decades of joint opioid enforcement. A practitioner managing a DEA inquiry without understanding its relationship to the state board proceeding that may accompany or follow it is managing only part of the enforcement picture.
The Data-Sharing Framework
State prescription drug monitoring programs are often maintained within the state pharmacy board’s administrative structure. The data those programs contain is shared with the DEA under data-sharing agreements that most states have executed as a condition of receiving federal funding for their PDMP programs. The DEA accesses PDMP data to identify prescribing outliers, to track the prescribing of practitioners under investigation, and to corroborate investigative referrals generated by its own analytical systems.
The flow of information works in both directions. State boards share licensing records, disciplinary histories, and investigative findings with the DEA. The DEA shares investigative findings, warrant return inventories, and in some cases grand jury materials with state boards through mechanisms the applicable law authorizes. A practitioner who is the subject of a DEA investigation will typically find that the state medical board has received information about that investigation through formal notification or the data-sharing channels that connect the two agencies.
Simultaneous Proceedings
The strategic use of simultaneous DEA and state board proceedings against the same practitioner is not uncommon. The DEA may suspend or revoke the DEA registration while the state board considers the medical license. The state board may impose an emergency suspension of the medical license while the criminal investigation proceeds. The two proceedings are legally independent but practically coordinated, and an adverse outcome in one typically informs and often accelerates the other.
A state medical board that learns of a DEA criminal investigation of a practitioner may initiate its own investigation without waiting for the criminal proceeding to conclude. Most state medical practice acts authorize the board to take emergency action against a licensee whose conduct poses an imminent risk to public safety, and the existence of a DEA criminal investigation, particularly one that has produced a search warrant, is typically sufficient to trigger the emergency action authority.
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The DEA refers matters to state licensing boards when the evidence supports state administrative action even where it may not support federal criminal prosecution. A prescribing pattern anomalous but not clearly establishing the criminal intent required for a Section 841 prosecution may nonetheless support a state board finding that the practitioner’s conduct falls below the standard of care required for licensure.
State boards refer matters to the DEA when their investigations reveal controlled substance prescribing that appears to involve criminal conduct beyond the scope of the board’s licensing jurisdiction. A state board investigation that uncovers evidence of prescriptions issued without patient examinations, of cash payments for controlled substance prescriptions, or of prescriptions issued to known addicts without treatment monitoring may generate a DEA referral initiating the federal investigation the board’s authority cannot reach.
The practitioner who cooperates fully with the state board investigation on the theory that the state board is separate from the DEA and that board cooperation will have no effect on the federal investigation is operating under a misunderstanding about how these agencies communicate. Statements made to state board investigators, documents produced in state board proceedings, and findings made in state board adjudications each reach the DEA through mechanisms that the practitioner’s cooperation agreement with the state board did not prevent.
Todd Spodek
Lead Attorney & Founder
Featured on Netflix's "Inventing Anna," Todd Spodek brings decades of high-stakes criminal defense experience. His aggressive approach has secured dismissals and acquittals in cases others deemed unwinnable.
Coordinating the Defense Across Both Proceedings
The defence of a practitioner who faces both a DEA investigation and a state board proceeding requires counsel who understands the relationship between the two forums and who can develop a coordinated strategy for addressing both. Statements made to state board investigators are not protected by the same constitutional privileges that apply in federal criminal proceedings, and cooperation with the state board that produces incriminating admissions creates evidence that the federal investigation can access.
The coordination of the two proceedings, including the timing and substance of responses to each, the management of document productions that reach both agencies, and the strategic positioning of the practitioner’s narrative in each forum, is specialized work that requires counsel who practices in both administrative and criminal healthcare law.
