Supreme Court rules on doctors injecting narcotics for non-medical purposes

The Supreme Court ruled that a doctor administering narcotic or psychotropic injections to a patient for purposes outside their professional duties violates the Narcotics Control Act, but generally does not constitute an illegal sale of such substances.

In its decision dated March 12, the high court determined that when a medical practitioner injects a patient with controlled substances for non-work-related reasons, the act falls under the prohibited category of "administering narcotics or psychotropic drugs" rather than "selling" them. The ruling addressed violations of the Narcotics Control Act, the Medical Service Act, and the Resident Registration Act.

The bench reasoned that since the law explicitly separates "administration" from "sales" and does not include sales as a permitted activity for medical handlers, a doctor's unauthorized injection cannot be legally classified as a sale absent special circumstances. For doctors, permitted acts include administering drugs, providing them for administration, or issuing prescriptions containing them. The court noted that because the pre-revision statute defines permitted handling types specifically for each class of handler, prohibitions for non-work purposes apply only within those defined types. Consequently, while the injection itself is a violation, it does not meet the statutory definition of trafficking.