David Halvorson, M.D.; Decision and Order

<NOTICE> DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE <SUBAGY>Drug Enforcement Administration</SUBAGY> <SUBJECT>David Halvorson, M.D.; Decision and Order</SUBJECT> On September 5, 2025, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA or Government) issued an Order to Show Cause (OSC) to David Halvorson, M.D., of Alabaster, Alabama (Registrant). Request for Final Agency Action (RFAA), Exhibit (RFAAX) 1, at 1, 4. The OSC proposed the revocation of Registrant's Certificate of Registration, No. BH3453278, alleging that Registrant's registration should be revoked because Registrant is “currently without authority to prescribe, administer, dispense, or otherwise handle controlled substances in the State of Alabama, the state in which [he is] registered with DEA.” <E T="03">Id.</E> at 2 (citing 21 U.S.C. 824(a)(3)). <SU>1</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>1</SU>  According to the OSC and Agency records, Registrant's registration expired on October 31, 2025. RFAAX 1, at 1. The fact that a registrant allows his registration to expire during the pendency of an administrative enforcement proceeding does not impact the Agency's jurisdiction or prerogative under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) to adjudicate the OSC to finality. <E T="03">Jeffrey D. Olsen, M.D.,</E> 84 FR 68474, 68476-79 (2019). </FTNT> The OSC notified Registrant of his right to file a written request for hearing, and that if he failed to file such a request, he would be deemed to have waived his right to a hearing and be in default. <E T="03">Id.</E> (citing 21 CFR 1301.43). Here, Registrant did not request a hearing, and the Agency finds him to be in default. RFAA, at 3. <SU>2</SU> <FTREF/> “A default, unless excused, shall be deemed to constitute a waiver of the registrant's/applicant's right to a hearing and an admission of the factual allegations of the [OSC].” 21 CFR 1301.43(e). <FTNT> <SU>2</SU>  Based on the Government's submissions in its RFAA dated October 22, 2025, the Agency finds that service of the OSC on Registrant was adequate. The included declaration from a DEA Diversion Investigator (DI) indicates that on September 8, 2025, DEA employees attempted to personally serve Registrant at his registered address, but the address, a business location, appeared to be closed and/or abandoned. RFAAX 2, at 1. On the same day, other DEA employees attempted to serve Registrant at his residential address, where the DEA employees were informed that Registrant lived there but was not home. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 1-2. On September 9, 2025, the DI mailed a copy of the OSC to Registrant's residential address and received proof of delivery, with the delivery signed for by Registrant on September 10, 2025. <E T="03">Id.</E> at 2; <E T="03">see also id.</E> at 3. Here, the Agency finds that the OSC was successfully served on Registrant by mail and that the DI's efforts to serve Registrant by other means were “ `reasonably calculated, under all the circumstances, to apprise [Registrant] of the pendency of the action.' ” <E T="03">Jones</E> v. <E T="03">Flowers,</E> 547 U.S. 220, 226 (2006) (quoting <E T="03">Mullane</E> v. <E T="03">Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co.,</E> 339 U.S. 306, 314 (1950)). </FTNT> Further, “[i]n the event that a registrant . . . is deemed to be in default . . . DEA may then file a request for final agency action with the Administrator, along with a record to support its request. In such circumstances, the Administrator may enter a default final order pursuant to [21 CFR] 1316.67.” <E T="03">Id.</E> 1301.43(f)(1). Here, the Government has requested final agency action based on Registrant's default pursuant to 21 CFR 1301.43(c), (f), 1301.46. RFAA, at 1; <E T="03">see also</E> 21 CFR 1316.67. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Findings of Fact</HD> The Agency finds that, in light of Registrant's default, the factual allegations in the OSC are deemed admitted. According to the OSC, on or about June 6, 2025, the Medical Licensure Commission of Alabama revoked Registrant's Alabama medical license. RFAAX 1, at 2. According to Alabama online records, of which the Agency takes official notice, <SU>3</SU> <FTREF/> Registrant's Alabama medical license remains revoked. Alabama Board of Medical Examiners and Medical Licensure Commission License Lookup, <E T="03">https://dashboard.albme.gov/Verification/search.aspx</E> (last visited date of signature of this Order). Accordingly, the Agency finds that Registrant is not licensed to practice medicine in Alabama, the state in which he is registered with DEA. <SU>4</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>3</SU>  Under the Administrative Procedure Act, an agency “may take official notice of facts at any stage in a proceeding—even in the final decision.” United States Department of Justice, Attorney General's Manual on the Administrative Procedure Act 80 (1947) (Wm. W. Gaunt & Sons, Inc., Reprint 1979). </FTNT> <FTNT> <SU>4</SU>  Pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 556(e), “[w]hen an agency decision rests on official notice of a material fact not appearing in the evidence in the record, a party is entitled, on timely request, to an opportunity to show the contrary.” The material fact here is that Registrant, as of the date of this decision, is not licensed to practice medicine in Alabama. Accordingly, Registrant may dispute the Agency's finding by filing a properly supported motion for reconsideration of findings of fact within fifteen calendar days of the date of this Order. Any such motion and response shall be filed and served by email to the other party and to the DEA Office of the Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration at <E T="03">dea.addo.attorneys@dea.gov.</E> </FTNT> <HD SOURCE="HD1">Discussion</HD> Pursuant to 21 U.S.C. 824(a)(3), the Attorney General is authorized to suspend or revoke a registration issued under 21 U.S.C. 823 “upon a finding that the registrant . . . has had his State license or registration suspended . . . [or] revoked . . . by competent State authority and is no longer authorized by State law to engage in the . . . dispensing of controlled substances.” With respect to a practitioner, DEA has also long held that the possession of authority to dispense controlled substances under the laws of the state in which a practitioner engages in professional practice is a fundamental condition for obtaining and maintaining a practitioner's registration. <E T="03">Gonzales</E> v. <E T="03">Oregon,</E> 546 U.S. 243, 270 (2006) (“The Attorney General can register a physician to dispense controlled substances `if the applicant is authorized to dispense . . . controlled substances under the laws of the State in which he practices.' . . . The very definition of a `practitioner' eligible to prescribe includes physicians `licensed, registered, or otherwise permitted, by the United States or the jurisdiction in which he practices' to dispense controlled substances. 802(21).”). The Agency has applied these principles consistently. <E T="03">See, e.g., James L. Hooper, M.D.,</E> 76 FR 71371, 71372 (2011), <E T="03">pet. for rev. denied,</E> 481 F. App'x 826 (4th Cir. 2012); <E T="03">Frederick Marsh Blanton, M.D.,</E> 43 FR 27616, 27617 (1978). <SU>5</SU> <FTREF/> <FTNT> <SU>5</SU>  This rule derives from the text of two provisions of the CSA. First, Congress defined the term “practitioner” to mean “a physician . . . or other person licensed, registered, or otherwise permitted, by . . . the jurisdiction in which he practices . . . , to distribute, dispense, . . . [or] administer . . . a controlled substance in the course of professional practice.” 21 U.S.C. 802(21). Second, in setting the requirements for obtaining a practitioner's registration, Congress directed that “[t]he Attorney General shall register practitioners . . . if the applicant is authorized to dispense . . . controlled substances under the laws of the State in which he practices.” 21 U.S.C. 823(g)(1). Because Congress has clearly mandated that a practitioner possess state authority in order to be deemed a practitioner under the CSA, DEA has held repeatedly that revocation of a practitioner's registration is the appropriate sanction whenever he is no longer authorized to dispense controlled substances under the laws of the state in which he practices. <E T="03">See, e.g., James L. Hooper, M.D.,</E> 76 FR at 71371-72; <E T="03">Sheran Arden Yeates, M.D.,</E> 71 FR 39130, 39131 (2006); <E T="03">Dominick A. Ricci, M.D.,</E> 58 FR 51104, 51105 (1993); <E T="03">Bobby Watts, M.D.,</E> 53 FR 11919, 11920 (1988); <E T="03">Frederick Marsh Blanton, M.D.,</E> 43 FR at 27617. </FTNT> According to Alabama statute, “dispense” means “[t]o deliver a controlled substance to an ultimate user or research subject by or pursuant to the lawful order of a practitioner, including the prescribing, administering, packaging, labeling, or compounding necessary to prepare the substance for that delivery.” Ala. Code 20-2-2(7) (2025). Further, a “practitioner” includes a “physician . . . or other person licensed, registered, or otherwise permitted to distribute, dispense, conduct research with respect to, or to administer a controlled substance in the course of professional practice or research in [the] state.” <E T="03">Id.</E> at § 20-2-2(20)(a). Here, the undisputed evidence in the record is that Registrant lacks authority to practice medicine in Alabama. As discussed above, an individual must be a licensed practitioner to dispense a controlled substance in Alabama. Thus, because Registrant lacks authority to practice medicine in Alabama and, therefore, is not authorized to handle controlled substances in Alabama, Registrant is not eligible to maintain a DEA registration. Accordingly, the Agency will order that Registrant's DEA registration be revoked. <HD SOURCE="HD1">Order</HD> Pursuant to 28 CFR 0.100(b) and the authority vested in me by 21 U.S.C. 824(a), I her ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Preview showing 10k of 11k characters. Full document text is stored and available for version comparison. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━