JUDGE PUSHES DEA TO BACK OFF DAVIE LICENSE SUSPENSION

FORT LAUDERDALE -- A judge pressed the Drug Enforcement Administration on
Tuesday to back off an order shutting down a pharmacy for filling online
prescriptions, but the agency would not.

Lifeline Pharmacy and its supplier C&W Wholesale were shut down Oct. 10
after the DEA suspended their licenses for allegedly violating state law and
federal regulations with its Internet-generated business.

The jointly owned companies based in Davie are seeking an injunction
allowing them to resume their traditional wholesale and retail businesses
with an agreement to stay away from the Web.

U.S. District Judge William Dimitrouleas pushed the two sides into an order
both could accept. But after phone calls to Washington, Assistant U.S.
Attorney Marilynn Lindsay said DEA was sticking to the suspension.

The judge asked whether the DEA's goal was to ``shut down C&H or curtail
this burgeoning spread of Internet pharmacy activity without doctors seeing
patients.''

Lindsay said the agency wanted to remove the potential for abuse.

Dimitrouleas found fault with the way the DEA stepped in, saying he didn't
think the agency followed federal law by yanking the license without setting
a hearing within 30 days to hear any appeal. No date has been set for such a
hearing.

The companies said they have already fired six of 30 employees since the
raid and will have to get rid of 11 more in the next two weeks unless the
suspension is lifted.

Lifeline sold 2.9 million doses of prescription drugs, mostly for weight
loss and sleep aids, to online customers in less than three months this
year, the DEA said.

Lifeline and C&W said they did not generate prescriptions through their own
Web sites but filled doctor-approved orders obtained through an Internet
clearinghouse for more than 50 Web sites.

The prescriptions were authorized by five doctors in California, Florida,
Kentucky, New Jersey and Pennsylvania, investigators said.

Federal regulations state that a doctor is authorized to prescribe drugs
while ``acting in the usual course of his professional practice.''

The DEA issued a notice in April 2001 saying online questionnaires were an
inadequate basis for prescriptions. Hersch said that served as ``a position
paper'' and did not have the force of regulations.

Florida began requiring personal contact between doctors and patients to
issue most prescriptions Sept. 14, but company attorney Richard Hersch said
most states do not mandate it.

``I really do think there's room for interpretation here,'' said Hersch.

C&H opened in 1999 and became a high-volume wholesaler of the sleeping pill
Ambien and diet pills, including amphetamines and phentermine, the DEA said.
Lifeline filled up to 1,000 orders a day from online prescriptions.