Former Emergency Room Physician Sentenced To 10 Years In Prison For Selling Methamphetamine

A traumatic injury can turn your life upside down in an instant.  Even after the doctors tell you that you are healed, you might live with unbearable pain for years.  What happens if your doctors then take away the prescription medication that has made the pain bearable?  This scenario is common enough that you probably know someone who has lived this nightmare.  It just goes to show how misguided it is to regard substance use disorder as a moral failure or the drug use and desperate acts to get drugs as malicious acts.  Unfortunately, this is how the criminal court system often acts, even though it is obvious to the defendants in drug cases, and to the people who know them, how unfair this is.  Although drug courts in Florida have made great strides in connecting people with substance use disorder to treatment and support, courts still hand down draconian sentences for drug crimes that never would have happened if the defendants’ physical and medical health had been properly cared for.  Last month, a court handed down such a sentence for a doctor who spent his life trying to protect others from exactly this problem, until he himself became too ill to work.  If you are facing charges for a drug crime that stems from a long series of mishaps outside your control, contact a Central Florida drug crimes defense lawyer.

The Rise and Fall of Carlton Cash

Three things that have been constant in Carlton Cash’s life are physical pain, guns, and a relentlessly optimistic desire to help other people.  He grew up in rural Alabama, where everyone learned at an early age how to use guns and when not to use them.  He was diagnosed with a neuromuscular condition in early childhood, which caused him pain, but despite this, he graduated from medical school and residency and began practicing emergency medicine.  He worked in hospital emergency rooms in six states, never turning down an opportunity to provide care to patients in underserved rural areas.  In 2004, while Cash was driving to a hospital in rural Kentucky for his shift in the ER, a tractor-trailer crashed into his car.  When the air ambulance dropped him off at the hospital trauma center, doctors did not expect him to survive.

Cash recovered and was able to practice medicine again, but he became addicted to the opioid painkillers prescribed to him.  He got sober in 2010, but by 2018, his health had worsened to where he could no longer practice medicine.  He decided to move to Florida with his boyfriend Ray Diaz.  In 2019, Cash decided to try methamphetamine, thinking it would help him be more social in the gay club scene.  His meth addiction soon spiraled out of control; Cash also found that selling meth could provide him with a source of income now that he could no longer practice medicine.  A man who had bought meth from Cash got arrested and agreed to act as an informant in order to reduce his own punishment.  With the informant’s help, authorities found a stash of meth, along with a gun, in Cash’s home.  Cash quickly pleaded guilty and expressed a wish to find sobriety in prison.  He was sentenced to ten years in prison, although his family and friends, as well as advocates of drug policy reform, consider this an injustice.

Let Us Help You Today

A Florida drug offense lawyer can help you if you are facing criminal charges for possession, manufacture, or sale of methamphetamine.  Contact FL Drug Defense Group for help today.

Resources:

sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-ne-meth-dealing-doctor-ss-prem-20210322-6g2tmy3o4nbs5dfbgcthtwxndm-story.html

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