United States Drug Enforcement Administration

AUG 28 - (HARTFORD, Conn.) - John J. Arvanitis, Special Agent in Charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration for New England and Deirdre M. Daly, Acting United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, today announced that Avijit Mitra, M.D., with an office at 270 Amity Road in Woodbridge, has entered into a civil settlement agreement with the government in which he will pay $45,000 to resolve allegations that he violated civil provisions of the Controlled Substances Act.

The allegations against Mitra involve claims that he wrote 13 prescriptions that were outside the normal scope of his medical practice.  The prescriptions were for Opana and Oxycontin, both Schedule II controlled substances.

Congress, with the passage of the Controlled Substances Act, took steps to attempt to create “a closed system” of distribution for controlled substances in which every facet of the handling of the substances, from their manufacture to their consumption by the ultimate user, was to be subject to intense governmental regulation. This mission was taken against the backdrop of trying to prevent the diversion and abuse of legitimate controlled substances while at the same time ensuring an adequate supply of those substances needed to meet the medical and scientific needs of the United States.

This investigation was conducted by investigators from the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Office of Diversion Control in Rocky Hill, the Drug Control Division of Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection, and the Clinton Police Department