{"id":260,"date":"2018-03-28T15:25:28","date_gmt":"2018-03-28T19:25:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tampacriminallawyer.net\/?p=260"},"modified":"2026-01-09T08:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T13:24:14","slug":"sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/","title":{"rendered":"Sentencing Issues in Florida Prescription Drug Trafficking Cases"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Drug trafficking cases are treated very seriously in Florida and often come with the possibility of significant prison time and fines. That includes mandatory minimum sentences that force judges to send offenders to prison for a certain amount of time. The punishments in drug cases vary, however, based on the type and quantity of the drug involved.The Florida legislature occasionally updates criminal laws to reflect a better understanding of the dangers posed by different drugs. In 2014, for example, lawmakers updated criminal laws to treat two prescription painkillers \u2013 hydrocodone and hydromorphone \u2013 differently for drug trafficking purposes. As a <a href=\"https:\/\/edca.1dca.org\/DCADocs\/2017\/2521\/172521_1284_02232018_09282272_i.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">recent decision<\/a> out of the state\u2019s First District Court of Appeals makes clear, those updates don\u2019t apply to someone convicted before the law changed.<\/p>\n<p>A defendant was charged with trafficking in hydrocodone in 2012. The prescription drug is a powerful painkiller that\u2019s addictive and has been the source of a significant number of overdoses. The defendant was allegedly holding between 14 and 28 grams of the drug at the time. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison.<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/#more-260\" class=\"more-link\">Continue Reading \u203a<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Drug trafficking cases are treated very seriously in Florida and often come with the possibility of significant prison time and fines. That includes mandatory minimum sentences that force judges to send offenders to prison for a certain amount of time. The punishments in drug cases vary, however, based on the type and quantity of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-drug-trafficking"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Sentencing in Prescription Drug Trafficking<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Facing prescription drug trafficking charges in Florida? Find out how sentencing works and why pill weight and priors matter.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"Sentencing in Prescription Drug Trafficking\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"Facing prescription drug trafficking charges in Florida? 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Find out how sentencing works and why pill weight and priors matter.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_title":"Sentencing in Prescription Drug Trafficking","twitter_description":"Facing prescription drug trafficking charges in Florida? Find out how sentencing works and why pill weight and priors matter.","twitter_image":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/prescription-trafficking-sentencing-penalties.webp","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Hanlon Law, PA","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/"},"author":{"name":"Hanlon Law, PA","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837"},"headline":"Sentencing Issues in Florida Prescription Drug Trafficking Cases","datePublished":"2018-03-28T19:25:28+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-09T13:24:14+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/"},"wordCount":525,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/prescription-trafficking-sentencing-penalties.webp","articleSection":["Drug Trafficking"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/","url":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/","name":"Sentencing in Prescription Drug Trafficking","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/sentencing-issues-in-florida-prescription-drug-trafficking-cases\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/03\/prescription-trafficking-sentencing-penalties.webp","datePublished":"2018-03-28T19:25:28+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-09T13:24:14+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.criminalattorneytampa.net\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/8b1bbe17dcab105246cd4cb867e91837"},"description":"Facing prescription drug trafficking charges in Florida? 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