Texarkana physician sentenced to federal prison for over-prescribing pain pills

    TEXARKANA, Arkansas (KTBS) -- A Texarkana physician was sentenced Monday to more than seven years in prison for over-providing pain pills for patients.

Federal authorities said Dr. Lonnie Parker, 59, handed out the controlled substances over a two-year period. An investigation was launched after complaints Parker was operating a pill mill and the possible overdose death of a patient.

Investigators analyzed prescription drug monitoring data attributed to Parker and found he prescribed opiates, benzodiazepines and promethazine with codeine cough syrup with unusual frequency and usually in large quantities in the Texarkana area.

In the two years, Parker prescribed about 1.2 million dosage units of opiates, including oxycodone and hydrocodone, to about 1,508 patients, which is about 847 dosage units per patient. He also prescribed about 16 gallons of promethazine with codeine cough syrup to about 29 patients during the same time frame. The prescriptions included several for combinations of narcotics and sedatives to high diversion-risk patients.

His sentence was broken down into 7.25 years for two counts of distribution of Schedule II Controlled Substance without an effective prescription and one year on two counts of distribution of a Schedule V CDS without an effective prescription. Both sentences are to run concurrently.