Yeah, it used to be crazy.
I lived up in Seattle and had a friend who wasn't a doctor, np, or even a nurse but was a doctor's personal assistant and he trusted her enough to have his DEA number and had her call in prescriptions for him at pharmacy's all the time out of laziness. So, naturally, being a the true dumbass she was she began writing herself, and people she knew, controlled substances. Her bf was add but without insurance or a dr up there so she wrote him adderaal scrips, she wrote herself and myself opiate scrips once a week. We'd switch pharmacies so they wouldn't be able to keep track. This must've been before the SMD as well, not sure when that came about, because we never had any issues. Until she got dumb one day and decided to use a pharmacy right down the street from her dr's office (something she always said would be what got her caught..but they were one of the only 24 hour ones around and she was desperate at 2am). The pharmacist immediately called the dr's personal cell number, having it since they got some many prescriptions from that dr being so close to the office, and the gig was up. The pharmacist told her to wait the usual 15 min for fill, and promptly called the police. Her bf, who was waiting in the car outside, claimed to see her go in...2 officers come in 10 min later, and then all of them leave...together. I'm not sure exactly what happened to her, but I'm pretty sure she avoided any real jail time or anything too permanent on her record, maybe 1st offenders idk, bc she seems to be doing well for herself now (and is many years into recovery as well). I was freaking out at the time bc I wasn't sure if the police were going to do a full investigation and compare times the dea number had been used compared to the dr's own log, but I'm pretty sure the dr didn't want to push the case much further..I know he had a lot of sympathy for my friend (despite definitely firing her ass)...I would've been in deep shit had that had happened but I'm pretty sure I'm good seeing as this was almost a decade ago.
Man oh man, I've escaped some shit as well. I had a connection that lived about 2 hours south of me that was crazy cheap for morphine 30mg er's. Now, a lot of pillheads dislike thosebc they're on the weaker side and morphine based opiates tend to be a bit different, and some consider less intense, high than codone based opiates..and the lady I got them from (the mother of an old coworker I had who had a number of health problems and chronic pain issues) was prescribed 180 of them a month on top of 90 10mg dilaudid for breakthrough pain....yeah, a whole shitload. She lived off of disability and sold her pills for income and began to get paranoid about her family and others in the small bumblefuck town she lived in, so she began exclusively selling to me..and selling to me very very cheap. Since it was a nearly 2 hour drive there (and 2 hour drive back), this wasn't a trip I wanted to do daily, so I often went down once a week and bought 20+ at a time. Now, even though these were all for me (i would sell maybe 5 total out of the whole batch...and not always)...I know, had I been pulled over and searched, I would've been hit with a plethora of charges..definitely including intent to distribute..it's hard to argue that 40 morphine pills are for your personal use, I have parents who are upper middle class and surely would've gotten me a lawyer who prob would've been able to use the fact that it was my first drug charge to get me to plead down to first offenders, or get all the pills consolodated into one charge, or get me drug court, or something surely, but it sure would've sucked. One of my buddies plead first offenders after getting stung when he was 19 at a show selling molly...he's now 32 and just now getting his record sealed after being a saint for nearly a decade despite not being able to get a decent paying job bc of his felon status, or go to school even.
Oy, this is good stuff to think about as I romanticize about drug use..