Pensacola Doctor Pleads Guilty: Illegally Prescribed More Than 25,500 Controlled-Substance Pills Over Five Years
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Florida announced on October 21 that Dr. Edward Scott Morrison, 58, of Pensacola Beach, Florida, pleaded guilty in federal court to nineteen counts of unlawfully distributing or dispensing controlled substances. U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin announced the plea.
Court records establish that between 2020 and 2025, Morrison, a Florida-licensed physician contracted to work at hospital emergency departments and other medical offices in and around Escambia County, illegally prescribed at least 25,500 controlled-substance pills, including over 22,000 opioid pills (primarily oxycodone and hydrocodone) and over 3,000 stimulant pills (primarily Adderall or generic equivalents). Prosecutors said he wrote, signed, and distributed the prescriptions without determining whether there was a legitimate medical purpose, without conducting physical examinations, without reviewing and assessing all available historical medical and prescribing records, and without creating or maintaining any records of the encounters; he issued prescriptions simply upon a person's request, or a third party's request, in whatever type, dosage, and quantity was desired. The pills were filled and dispensed at pharmacies in Escambia and Santa Rosa Counties.
"This defendant repeatedly abused his ability to prescribe powerful controlled substances as a medical professional and acted as little more than a drug dealer in a lab coat," U.S. Attorney John P. Heekin said. "The opioid epidemic continues to have a devastating impact on communities within my district and nationwide, and my office is committed to aggressively prosecuting the peddlers of those deadly drugs to hold them accountable for the pain, addiction, and despair they have wrought."
Sentencing is set for January 14, 2027, at 11 a.m. before U.S. District Judge M. Casey Rodgers, and Morrison faces up to 20 years in prison on each count. The case was part of the Department of Justice's 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown and was investigated by the DEA and its Diversion Control Division, with assistance from the Gulf Coast High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) Task Force, the Escambia County Sheriff's Office, the Pensacola Police Department, the Gulf Breeze Police Department, U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division, and the Food and Drug Administration's Office of Criminal Investigations (FDA-OCI).
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：位于 Pensacola 的 Winston E. Arnow 联邦大楼（资料图），佛罗里达州北区联邦地区法院设于此楼。Carol M. Highsmith 摄，公共领域，取自维基共享资源。Photo: The Winston E. Arnow Federal Building in Pensacola, Florida, home of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Florida (file photo). Carol M. Highsmith, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
