Do you Handle Controlled Substance Cases?

I do. In fact, as a prosecutor in Amarillo, that is almost the exclusive type of case I had. I had all of the sex, violence, and drug cases in the 108th District Court. Over three years, I tried nothing but those kinds of cases.

The thing about a controlled substance case is that you have to understand a couple of different pieces of code to understand how the cases all work. In Texas and a lot of states, the controlled substance code, the Texas Health and Safety Act, lays out what substances are dangerous. They do it by putting them into penalty groups and listing them. There is a Penalty Group One, Two, Three, and Four. They are designed to say how dangerous, how addictive, and whether the substance can be used for any medical reason.

You lay those substances out and then it depends on the quantity you have. A charge might be possession of a controlled substance, Penalty Group One, but less than a gram. That is a state jail felony. From one gram to four grams, it is a third-degree felony. From four grams to 200, it is a second-degree felony, and above that is a first-degree felony. In fact, if you have over 400 grams, it is an enhanced first-degree felony where you have, not a minimum of 5 years, but a minimum of 10 years or 15 years depending on all the information.

Controlled substances are anything from cocaine and heroin (the things we think of as hard drugs) all the way down to prescription pills. Some prescription pills are Penalty Group Three or Four. Some of them are just listed as a dangerous drug, and those are misdemeanors depending on the quantity. If you have a whole bunch of them, then you are talking about a felony as well.

Some medicines that people use for treatment are now abused. We are talking about the opioid issue. You end up with a person who has a lot of hydrocodone, but it depends on how concentrated the hydrocodone is. Certain pills are going to be Penalty Group Three. The really serious stuff, it could be Penalty Group Two. It could be treated just as harshly as cocaine.

It is really important to have an attorney that understands the distinction and the chemistry of the drugs to know where you are going to fall on the chart, what you are facing, and how bad it is going to be. For instance, most people think of marijuana as a misdemeanor and not a big issue. In Texas, if it is marijuana extract, the law specifically is written to address hashish or hash oil. Marijuana extract is a penalty group, not a misdemeanor because marijuana is possession of marijuana; hashish is possession of a controlled substance.

Guess what all the THC stuff coming from other states is? It is treated just like an extract from the plant. You have marijuana gummies, or wax, or any of that other stuff, any edibles, those are treated as a control substance. The worst part of that is that the code allows any adulterants or diluents to be included in the weight.

You take one pot brownie and depending on how thick the pot brownie is, it could be a second-degree felony just based on the number of grams. Now, do you want to take a lawyer who understands that, or do you want to have a lawyer that says all possession cases are alike? You need to have an attorney who understands how these things break down, how these things apply, and how they all apply to you.