Tacoma Pharmacy Pays $80,000 Over CSA

What Happened

Lincoln Pharmacy in Tacoma, Washington, agreed in February 2023 to pay the United States $80,000 to settle claims that it failed to comply with administrative requirements of the Controlled Substances Act. According to the settlement, a June 2021 DEA inspection found the pharmacy did not maintain records for substances such as oxycodone and hydrocodone between March 2020 and June 2021, kept inadequate inventories, did not record deliveries, failed to secure some controlled substances, and did not keep its private key secure. The pharmacy did not admit liability.

“Lincoln Pharmacy will pay the United States $80,000 to resolve the claims.”
U.S. Department of Justice / U.S. Attorney's Office press release, Feb 27, 2023

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, Feb 27, 2023

Case at a Glance

Setting: Pharmacy
Drug: Oxycodone, hydrocodone and other scheduled drugs
Method: Failure to keep required controlled substance records and security
Status: Civil settlement, February 2023: $80,000, 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)
2024 — No Pill Left Behind: Strategies for Comprehensive Drug Accountability (with Eric Andrews)
2022 — Ready for My Close Up! Implementing, Maintaining, and Expanding Drug Diversion Prevention Cameras (with Jeremy Quinn, Shawn Young, and John Bailey)

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Faculty, ASHP Drug Diversion Certificate
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Published author, Pharmacy Purchasing & Products

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

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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

Tacoma Pharmacy Pays $80,000 Over CSA Recordkeeping