Court Opinion

ID: 9697590
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 19:22:35.694951+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:34:00.125838
License: Public Domain

Dissenting Opinion by
Price, J.:
Phencyclidine has the ability to produce hallucinations and is becoming known on the Street as “Angel Dust.” Both the Congress of the United States and the *445Pennsylvania Legislature have found that because of its hallucinatory eifect and its depressant effect it has a potential for abuse. Its sole legitimate use had been in a solution prepared by Parke and Davis for veterinary use, but this has, according to my research, been discontinued for the past three or four years. Thus, it has no accepted medical use that I can ascertain. In any event, phencycli-dine has been, by legislative mandate, included in the Federal and Pennsylvania statutes as a prohibited drug.
I must dissent because I believe the majority has placed a strained construction upon the clear language of the statute. The Pennsylvania Controlled Substance, Drug, Device and Cosmetic Act1 provides in pertinent sections as follows:
“780-104 — Schedules of Controlled Substances. The following schedules include the controlled. substances listed, or to be listed....
(3) (i) Any material, compound, mixture, or preparation unless specifically excepted or unless listed in another schedule which contains any quantity of the following substances having a potential for abuse associated with a depressant effect on the central nervous system:
7. Phencyclidine.” (emphasis added)
As I read this section, it seems clear that the legislature intended to control any quantity of phencyclidine and that the phrase “having a potential for abuse associated with a depressant effect on the central nervous system” is a legislative finding, supported by the history of the drug, that this substance should be prohibited in any quantity. This phrase modifies the word substance which appears immediately before it and is, to my view, only to *446serve as a guide to the Secretary of Health in placing new drugs onto that schedule.
Any other construction conflicts with the plain meaning of the Pennsylvania statute. The majority construes the phrase to modify the word “quantity” which seems to me to be violative of ordinary good English rules. Further, the majority construction places upon the Commonwealth, in every case involving this language, the burden of establishing anew the legislative finding that these substances have a potential for abuse related to a depressant effect on the central nervous system. Such a requirement would be to render the legislative finding useless and destroy the statutory scheme. It would, if adopted, transfer the control of these substances to the fact-finder, whether it be judge or jury, rather than vesting that initial decision with the legislature. It would turn each trial into a rehash of the prior legislative hearings which have already heard and determined that these substances have a potential for abuse. It would produce no uniformity, for each judge or jury could reach a different, conflicting conclusion. It would, if adopted, substitute the fact-finder’s judgment for that of the legislature and require that in each case the Commonwealth produce the same scientific data already heard and accepted by the legislature. Clearly then the majority does not implement what I conceive to be the clear intent of the legislature. Nor do I perceive any danger that the sale, delivery or possession of many common non-prescription drugs such as aspirin, anacin, some cough syrups, etc., could be the subject of criminal prosecution. At least in the case of phencyclidine such is clearly not the case, for it now has no accepted medical use of which I am aware.
I would reverse the grant of the demurrer and remand the case for trial.
JACOBS, J., joins in this dissenting opinion.