A review of Vermont State Police Drug Diversion Unit files described a 2013 investigation of a pharmacy technician at a Burlington retail pharmacy. Police said she took 4,184 tablets of hydrocodone, zolpidem and Suboxone from the pharmacy.
The article does not explain how the shortages were first noticed or who reported them. It records that the technician told police she had given the tablets to her husband.
No court disposition is reported. The article notes that most diversion cases handled by the unit end in probation conditions or plea agreements rather than jail, and that prosecutors try to build treatment into those agreements.
The case was cited as one example of a sharp rise in the unit's workload, from 82 cases in 2011 to 236 in 2013, spanning doctor-shopping, prescription fraud and diversion by people working inside the supply chain.