Floricet and Florinal, and Federal DEA Exempted Products

Q.  Does West Virginia honor the DEA’s Exempt Prescription Product list.

 A.  No.  West Virginia has its own controlled substances act and it schedules several things that the DEA exempts.  For example, Fioricet and Fiorinal are treated the same here as controlled drugs, whereas the DEA schedules one but exempts the other.  The Board has fielded several questions recently on state versus federal scheduling of Chlordiazepoxide and Butalbital products.  Federal law has some exemptions for some of these.  However, our state law is tighter. To reiterate and flesh things out:

For Butalbital containing products in Schedule III of state statutes, West Virginia Code § 60A-2-208(c)(3) states that any substance which contains any quantity of a derivative of barbituric acid or any salt of barbituric acid is a CIII, and subsection (6) specifically states “Butalbital (including, but not limited to Fioricet)” is included as a CIII.  So, we treat Fioricet and Fiorinal the same under state law since they both contain butalbital, which comes from barbituric acid.

For products containing Chlordiazepoxide, regardless of federal exemptions, the state statute for Schedule IV at West Virginia Code § 60A-2-210(c)(8) specifically includes Chlordiazepoxide.