Pennsylvania Pharmacy Pays $210,000

What Happened

Waschko's Pharmacy, located in Hazelton, Pennsylvania, agreed in November 2022 to pay $210,000 in civil penalties for allegedly failing to comply with Controlled Substances Act recordkeeping requirements. A DEA inspection found that between August 2019 and August 2021 the pharmacy failed to keep complete, timely and accurate inventories and records of Schedule II, III and IV drugs, including oxycodone, amphetamine salts, buprenorphine/naloxone and alprazolam. Thousands of doses went unaccounted for. The pharmacy cooperated, has since been placed under new ownership and hired a new pharmacist-in-charge. The settlement was not an admission of liability.

“has agreed to pay the United States $210,000 in civil penalties for allegedly failing to comply”
U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Nov 1, 2022

Related Guidance

15 Red Flags of Drug Diversion — Behavioral and transactional indicators of diversion.
Investigation Playbook — How to investigate suspected diversion inside an organization.

Sources

U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Nov 1, 2022

Case at a Glance

Setting: Retail pharmacy
Drug: Oxycodone, amphetamine salts, buprenorphine/naloxone and alprazolam
Method: Alleged failure to keep complete, timely and accurate inventories and dispensing records
Status: Civil settlement announced November 2022: $210,000 in civil penalties, no admission of liability

Source: U.S. Department of Justice

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Where this record connects to the site's working material. Links are chosen from the case's setting, drug and method fields.

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Last reviewed: September 2026 · Educational content, not legal advice.

About the author

DivertGuard is built and maintained by Alex Rodriguez, MHIIM, CPhT (also known as Jesus Rodriguez) — a drug diversion prevention program manager with more than a decade in pharmacy practice, including direct responsibility for a health-system controlled substance diversion prevention program.

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2025 — The Rounding Revolution: A High-Tech Approach to Diversion Prevention (with Emily Spiceland, PharmD)
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Faculty, ASHP Drug Diversion Certificate
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Credentials

Doctorate candidate — Doctor of Health Informatics (DHI), Rutgers University, School of Health Professions; research on health data analytics and the prediction of cognitive decline
MHIIM — master's in health informatics, University of Tennessee Health Science Center (2019–2021)
CPhT — Certified Pharmacy Technician, with 10+ years of pharmacy practice across retail, hospice, compounding, home-health, and hospital settings

The assessment items, weighting, and case registry behind this site come from that operational background — building and running a diversion prevention program, not from vendor marketing. Every tool here is free, requires no signup, and is based on published regulatory and professional standards (DEA, Joint Commission, ASHP, CDC).

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Related Resources

Diversion Settlements & Fines

Settlements, civil penalties and criminal fines paid by hospitals and pharmacies in documented drug diversion cases, with the amount, year and primary source for each

Penalty Outcomes in the Case Records

Counts of the outcomes the registry records state: prison, probation, fines, licence actions and restitution, with stated sentence lengths by band and by drug class

Registry Insights: Sentences, Fines, States and Outcomes

Sentence lengths, fines and restitution, cases per 100,000 pharmacists by state, and plea and licence outcomes, each counted from the case records with its n, plus charts of cases by year, state and drug class

Pennsylvania Pharmacy Pays $210,000 for CSA Violations