Federal law prohibits anyone but a physician or nurse practitioner from distributing prescription drugs, and they must meet myriad regulations for acquiring, storing, labeling and transporting them. It is also illegal for a physican to distribute prescription drugs outside of his geographic area of practice. And it is illegal for trainers to dispense, or even handle, controlled substances in any way.
DEA spokesman Rusty Payne confirmed the existence of the investigation and said it was triggered by a class-action lawsuit filed in federal court in May by more than 1,300 retired NFL players. In the suit, they allege that NFL medical staffs regularly violate federal and state laws in plying their teams with powerful addictive narcotics such as Percocet and Percodan, sleeping pills such as Ambien, and the non-addictive painkiller Toradol to help them play through injuries on game days.
Agents began “interviewing NFL physicians in several locations,” Payne said, after reviewing material contained in the lawsuit. Players described being given unlabeled medications in hazardous combinations, teams filling out prescriptions in players’ names without their knowledge, trainers passing out pills in hotels or locker rooms, and medications handed out on team planes after games while alcohol was consumed.
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