The Seattle Division

DEA Seattle Field Division and Its Diversion-Control System

Last fully verified: July 25, 2026

Executive Finding

The Drug Enforcement Administration’s Seattle Division is a four-state regional command responsible for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. Its headquarters is in Seattle, but its jurisdiction extends across the continental Pacific Northwest and the noncontiguous state of Alaska. DEA currently lists thirteen additional field locations distributed among the four states.

The division’s geographic boundaries are comparatively clear. Its internal diversion-control structure is not.

DEA publicly identifies the Special Agent in Charge, the Seattle headquarters, subordinate field locations, general telephone numbers, registration-assistance lines, and a community-outreach representative. It does not publicly provide a current regional diversion-control organizational chart, identify the officials supervising diversion operations in each state, disclose the number or placement of Diversion Investigators, or publish division-level statistics showing registrations, inspections, administrative actions, voluntary surrenders, suspensions, revocations, or processing times.

That distinction matters. The public can see where the Seattle Division is located and who leads the entire field division. It cannot see, with comparable clarity, who administers the federal system governing lawful controlled substances within its four-state territory.

The available record nevertheless establishes that the Seattle Division’s diversion-control responsibilities reach physicians, pharmacies, hospitals, veterinarians, manufacturers, distributors, researchers, treatment providers, and other DEA registrants. Its work includes registration, regulatory compliance, controlled-substance security, theft-and-loss reporting, prescription investigations, administrative proceedings, civil enforcement, and criminal referral when the evidence supports it.

The official mission includes two obligations: preventing controlled substances from leaving lawful channels and ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical, scientific, and commercial needs.

Both obligations belong in any complete assessment of the division.

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Who the Seattle Division Serves

DEA states that the Seattle Division serves:

• Alaska
• Idaho
• Oregon
• Washington

This is not merely a Seattle-area office. It is the federal field division responsible for DEA operations across four entire states.

The division’s jurisdiction includes major metropolitan areas, international ports, Canadian-border communities, isolated rural counties, tribal lands, agricultural regions, mountain communities, islands, and remote parts of Alaska where access to medical care and pharmacies may already require substantial travel.

The public record does not establish that the Seattle headquarters personally handles every diversion matter arising in these locations. Matters may be managed through subordinate offices, regional diversion personnel, DEA headquarters components, federal prosecutors, state regulators, or combinations of those institutions. The division nevertheless remains the relevant regional DEA command.

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Territory and Office Structure

DEA’s current Seattle page lists the following locations and telephone numbers.

Seattle Division Headquarters

300 5th Avenue, Suite 1300
Seattle, Washington 98104
Main telephone: (206) 553-5443

Alaska

• Anchorage: (907) 271-5033
• Fairbanks: (907) 455-1818

Idaho

• Boise: (208) 386-2100

Oregon

• Bend: (541) 385-8798
• Eugene: (541) 465-6861
• Medford: (541) 776-4260
• Portland: (503) 721-6600
• Salem: (503) 399-5902

Washington

• Bellingham: (360) 676-3100
• Spokane: (509) 353-2964
• Tacoma: (253) 383-7901
• Tri-Cities–Kennewick: (509) 374-3444
• Yakima: (509) 454-4407

These are the locations DEA currently places on the Seattle Division’s public contact page. DEA does not list a separate subordinate location for every major population center or every part of Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

The Name Matters

The Seattle Field Division is not the same institution as DEA’s national Diversion Control Division.

The Seattle Division is a regional field command responsible for the four-state territory. The national Diversion Control Division develops and administers major parts of DEA’s regulatory program. Regional Diversion Investigators and other personnel operate within the broader field-division and national structure.

For that reason, this page uses the term:

DEA Seattle Field Division and its diversion-control system

It does not describe the office as a separate “Seattle Diversion Division.”

A Division Across the Pacific Northwest and Alaska

Seattle’s geography presents an unusual administrative problem. Three of its states are contiguous. Alaska is not.

The division must operate across a territory containing vast distances, remote communities, different state licensing laws, four prescription-monitoring systems, and substantial variation in healthcare access.

This does not prove that the division applies different enforcement standards in remote areas. It does mean that a registration delay, pharmacy interruption, practitioner surrender, or loss of a local prescriber can have a greater practical effect in a community with few alternatives than it would in a large metropolitan market.

That is a geographic inference—not a finding of misconduct.

Office Classifications

DEA’s Seattle page displays a legend containing four categories:

• Division Office
• District Office
• Resident Office
• Post of Duty Office

The accessible public text does not reliably assign each listed city to one of those categories. Accordingly, Seeds of Vice identifies them only as DEA-listed field locations unless an official source expressly establishes a more specific classification.

No office classification has been inferred from city size, staffing assumptions, telephone numbers, or historical descriptions.

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Current Leadership and Publicly Identified Personnel

Robert A. “Rob” Saccone

Special Agent in Charge

Robert A. Saccone is the current Special Agent in Charge of the Seattle Field Division. DEA states that Administrator Terrance C. “Terry” Cole appointed him in December 2025 and that he is responsible for DEA operations across Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Alaska.

Saccone entered DEA in January 2004. His official biography identifies assignments in the San Diego, Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and Special Operations divisions. He previously served as an Assistant Special Agent in Charge in Seattle beginning in December 2019, where DEA says he supervised most enforcement groups in western Washington. He became Deputy Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division in February 2024 before returning to Seattle as SAC.

His published biography is principally an enforcement biography. It does not state that he previously served as a Diversion Investigator or identify specific experience administering the Controlled Substances Act’s registration and regulatory system.

That absence does not establish that he lacks diversion-control knowledge. It means only that DEA’s public biography does not document it.

Marcus Pickett

Community Outreach

DEA identifies Marcus Pickett as the Seattle Division’s public community-outreach contact:

• Telephone: 206-225-6804
• Email: Marcus.L.Pickett@dea.gov

Publicly Unidentified Diversion Leadership

DEA’s current Seattle page does not publicly identify:

• The division’s senior diversion-program official
• Diversion group supervisors
• The official responsible for each state
• Assistant Special Agents in Charge with diversion portfolios
• The number or location of Diversion Investigators
• Registration-program managers
• Tactical Diversion Squad leadership
• Diversion-related public-information personnel

Seeds of Vice does not fill these positions with names found in old press releases, directories, archived guidance, professional profiles, or third-party websites.

A person publicly associated with a prior Seattle diversion matter is not necessarily a current employee, current supervisor, or current representative of the division.

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Official Role and Mission

DEA’s national Diversion Control Division states that its mission is to prevent, detect, and investigate the diversion of controlled pharmaceuticals and listed chemicals from legitimate sources while ensuring an adequate and uninterrupted supply for legitimate medical, commercial, and scientific needs.

That mission recognizes two different public interests:

1. Controlled substances should not be stolen, falsified, unlawfully prescribed, improperly dispensed, or redirected into illicit traffic.
2. Legitimate patients, practitioners, researchers, pharmacies, hospitals, manufacturers, and other lawful users must continue to have an adequate supply.

Diversion control is therefore not properly measured only by seizures, prosecutions, penalties, surrendered registrations, or reduced dispensing.

The uninterrupted lawful supply is part of the stated mission too.

The Closed System of Distribution

The Controlled Substances Act created what DEA describes as a closed system of distribution. Legitimate handlers—including manufacturers, distributors, pharmacies, hospitals, practitioners, importers, exporters, and researchers—must generally obtain DEA registration and account for controlled substances as they move through lawful channels. Registrants must maintain required records, inventories, and security.

Within this system, controlled substances are not treated like ordinary merchandise. DEA registration connects the registrant to federal requirements involving:

• Authorized schedules and activities
• Storage and physical security
• Inventories
• Ordering and transfer records
• Prescription requirements
• Theft and significant-loss reports
• Disposal
• Inspection
• Record retention
• Changes of address or ownership
• Registration renewal, modification, surrender, suspension, or revocation

State authority remains independently important. A DEA registration does not create a state medical, pharmacy, or veterinary license, and state authorization does not eliminate federal registration obligations.

Traditional Diversion-Control Work

Regional diversion work may include:

• Processing and reviewing registration matters
• Inspecting registered premises
• Auditing controlled-substance records
• Investigating thefts and significant losses
• Examining suspicious orders or transactions
• Investigating forged or fraudulent prescriptions
• Reviewing prescribing and dispensing practices
• Investigating employee diversion
• Examining automated dispensing systems
• Coordinating with licensing boards and prescription-monitoring programs
• Negotiating memoranda of agreement
• Seeking civil penalties
• Obtaining voluntary registration surrenders
• Recommending administrative proceedings
• Referring evidence for criminal prosecution

Not every inquiry results in enforcement. Not every deficiency is criminal. Not every settlement establishes that every government allegation was admitted or proven.

Broader Enforcement Is Not Diversion Control

The Seattle Field Division also investigates fentanyl trafficking, methamphetamine distribution, international criminal organizations, money laundering, firearms-related drug offenses, and other illicit-market activity.

Those operations belong to the division’s broader enforcement mission. They should not automatically be presented as results of the diversion-control program.

A fentanyl seizure does not establish the number of compliance inspections performed. A cartel prosecution does not reveal how many registrations were timely processed. An illicit-drug arrest does not measure whether lawful patients retained access to prescribed medicine.

The two systems can interact, but they are not interchangeable.

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How the System Works in Practice

Registrants

A physician, pharmacist, hospital, veterinarian, researcher, manufacturer, or distributor operating in the Seattle Division’s territory may answer to several authorities at once:

• DEA
• State professional licensing boards
• State pharmacy authorities
• State health departments
• State prescription-monitoring programs
• Federal and state prosecutors
• Insurers, hospitals, pharmacy chains, or institutional compliance departments

DEA generally controls the federal registration. States control professional licensure and state prescribing or dispensing authority. Employers and private entities may impose additional requirements that exceed what federal law expressly demands.

When access to medicine changes, responsibility may therefore be divided among several institutions.

It should not automatically be attributed to DEA alone.

Prescribers

Controlled-substance prescriptions must be issued for a legitimate medical purpose by a practitioner acting in the usual course of professional practice. State law determines who may practice, what a practitioner may prescribe, and the relevant scope of professional authority.

In practice, prescribers may also be influenced by:

• Prescription-monitoring requirements
• Licensing-board rules
• Hospital policies
• Insurer limits
• Pharmacy refusals
• Dosage thresholds
• Documentation expectations
• Fear of investigation or professional discipline

A decline in prescribing does not, by itself, show which of these forces caused it.

Pharmacists

Pharmacists are not treated as passive order-fillers. They have their own legal and professional responsibilities when dispensing controlled substances.

They may examine:

• Prescription validity
• Practitioner authority
• Refill timing
• Drug combinations
• Quantity and dosage
• Patient identification
• Geographic distance
• Payment method
• Early-fill patterns
• Possible alteration or forgery
• Other circumstances treated as warning signs

A pharmacist may decline to dispense even when a practitioner believes the prescription is medically appropriate. That decision may arise from law, professional judgment, employer policy, supply limitations, insurer requirements, or concern about regulatory exposure.

Hospitals, Clinics, and Veterinary Facilities

Diversion control also reaches institutional medicine.

Hospitals and clinics may be expected to monitor:

• Medication inventories
• Automated dispensing-cabinet overrides
• Wastage
• Discrepancies
• Employee access
• Unusual withdrawals
• Missing doses
• Record alterations
• Delayed theft reports

Veterinary facilities are subject to controlled-substance responsibilities even though the ultimate patient is an animal. The lawful channel includes human and veterinary medicine alike.

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The Four State-Control Layers

Federal DEA jurisdiction is shared across the division, but each state operates its own prescription-monitoring and professional-regulation system.

Washington

Washington established its Prescription Monitoring Program through state law and began collecting dispensing information from dispensers on October 7, 2011. The program collects controlled-substance prescription records and is intended to support patient care while helping identify misuse and inappropriate access.

Washington’s PMP is a state system. DEA may use legally available information, but the PMP should not be described as a database created or solely controlled by the Seattle Division.

Oregon

Oregon’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program began receiving pharmacy uploads in 2011. It collects information involving Schedule II, III, and IV controlled substances and gabapentin. Beginning in January 2025, Oregon expanded collection to Schedule V drugs and controlled substances prescribed by veterinarians.

Oregon states that law-enforcement agencies do not receive ordinary direct practitioner-style access to the PDMP. DEA may seek information through legally authorized processes, including administrative subpoenas. Oregon’s rules and access structure therefore should not be assumed to mirror those of Washington, Idaho, or Alaska.

Idaho

Idaho operates its PDMP through the Division of Occupational and Professional Licenses. Idaho’s current professional guidance connects compliance with controlled-substance prescribing and dispensing to participation in mandatory checking through the AWARxE system.

The state publishes separate reporting resources for dispensing data and certain practitioner sales. These are state compliance mechanisms layered on top of federal DEA registration.

Alaska

Alaska’s Prescription Drug Monitoring Program monitors Schedule II through IV controlled substances. Alaska requires registration by specified practitioners holding federal DEA registrations and by pharmacists dispensing covered substances.

Alaska requires covered practitioners to review a patient’s prescription history before prescribing federal Schedule II or III controlled substances, subject to statutory exceptions. Dispensers generally report covered prescriptions on a daily basis.

The interaction of federal registration, state monitoring, professional licensure, and geographic isolation makes Alaska a particularly important jurisdiction for continuity-of-care transparency.

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Diversion Control and Lawful Medicine

The need for diversion control is real.

Controlled substances can be stolen by employees, removed from hospitals, obtained through forged prescriptions, prescribed without lawful authority, dispensed without adequate controls, or concealed through falsified records.

The Seattle Division’s public record contains examples of each general category.

The need for lawful access is also real.

Controlled substances are used in surgery, emergency medicine, palliative care, cancer treatment, anesthesia, veterinary medicine, mental-health treatment, addiction treatment, and the management of acute and chronic pain.

DEA’s mission does not require the elimination of controlled-substance prescribing. Its stated mission requires preventing diversion while ensuring legitimate supply.

That balance is especially important when an investigation, registration surrender, pharmacy closure, prescribing restriction, or administrative action affects an established patient population.

The available public record does not show whether the Seattle Division systematically measures:

• How many patients lose a prescriber following an action
• Whether affected patients receive advance notice
• Whether medical records are transferred
• Whether hospitals or state agencies coordinate continuity
• Whether rural communities retain another local provider
• Whether temporary dispensing arrangements are made
• Whether patients experience abrupt medication interruption
• Whether the division evaluates unintended treatment consequences

The absence of published measurements is not proof that no safeguards exist.

It is proof that the public cannot evaluate them from the division’s published record.

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Prescription Disposal

DEA’s National Prescription Drug Take Back Day is one visible part of the division’s diversion-prevention activity.

On April 25, 2026, the Seattle Division reported collecting 12,922 pounds of unneeded or expired medications at 127 locations:

• Idaho: 5,657 pounds
• Washington: 4,146 pounds
• Alaska: 1,635 pounds
• Oregon: 1,484 pounds

DEA reported 642,410 pounds collected nationally at 4,417 sites during the same event.

These figures measure voluntary disposal. They do not measure prescribing quality, patient outcomes, inspections, enforcement activity, diversion rates, or the division’s complete regulatory workload.

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Prescribing Statistics Without False Continuity

Seeds of Vice uses 1984 as the requested historical starting point for studying the transformation of lawful medicine.

That does not mean a single, comparable dataset runs from 1984 through the present.

It does not.

No defensible public series located for this page provides annual, state-by-state, same-definition retail opioid dispensing rates for Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington beginning in 1984 and continuing without methodological breaks through 2026.

Accordingly:

• Missing years are not interpolated.
• Prescription counts are not presented as morphine-milligram-equivalent measurements.
• MME per capita is not treated as prescriptions per 100 residents.
• Retail dispensing is not treated as total medical utilization.
• State rates are not described as DEA Seattle Division performance measures.
• Different datasets are not merged into a false continuous line.

1984–2005

For this period, the page treats federal legislation, DEA history, registration policy, drug distribution, medical practice, and available national utilization research as separate historical evidence.

It does not manufacture four-state dispensing rates that the underlying sources do not provide.

2011 State Benchmark

CDC’s archived state data report the following estimated retail opioid-dispensing rates for 2011:

State	Opioid prescriptions per 100 residents
Alaska	68.0
Idaho	91.4
Oregon	100.7
Washington	81.6

These figures are state dispensing estimates—not numbers created by DEA and not measures of unlawful prescribing.

The four states were not identical. Oregon’s estimated 2011 rate was substantially higher than Alaska’s, while Idaho and Washington fell between them.

The figures do not reveal:

• The number of patients receiving medicine
• Average daily dosage
• Diagnosis
• Duration of treatment
• Whether prescriptions were medically appropriate
• Whether prescriptions were diverted
• Whether patients were undertreated or adequately treated
• Whether a change was caused by DEA, state law, insurers, clinical guidance, pharmacy policy, or changing medical practice

Current National Retail Series

CDC’s current retail-pharmacy series reports that the national opioid-dispensing rate declined from 46.8 prescriptions per 100 persons in 2019 to 35.4 in 2024, a decline of approximately 24.4 percent.

CDC states that its 2019–2024 estimates are based on IQVIA Xponent data from approximately 54,600 nonhospital retail pharmacies representing nearly 94 percent of U.S. retail prescriptions. The data exclude mail-order prescriptions and methadone dispensed through opioid-treatment programs, and geography is assigned according to the prescriber’s location.

These limitations matter. A retail prescription rate is not a complete measure of all opioid use, all pain treatment, all hospital administration, or all controlled-substance distribution.

What the Statistics Establish

The defensible conclusion is narrow:

Lawful retail opioid dispensing has declined substantially from the elevated levels documented during the early twenty-first century.

The statistics do not independently prove:

• Why the decline occurred
• Whether every reduction represented better care
• Whether every prior prescription was justified
• Whether every discontinued prescription was unnecessary
• Whether the Seattle Division caused a particular decline
• Whether reduced dispensing improved outcomes for every patient
• Whether diversion declined at the same rate
• Whether pain prevalence declined
• Whether patients retained adequate treatment

Population-level prescribing data describe volume. They do not decide the medical justice of an individual case.

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Overdose Context

Prescription trends must not be confused with the present illicit-overdose environment.

CDC states that prescription opioids continue to contribute to opioid-related deaths but are not the primary current driver of the national overdose crisis.

In 2023, approximately 105,000 people died from drug overdoses in the United States. Nearly 80,000 deaths involved an opioid, while approximately 69 percent of all overdose deaths involved synthetic opioids—primarily illegally manufactured fentanyl and fentanyl analogues.

Those figures do not prove that prescribing reductions caused illicit fentanyl deaths. They also do not prove that lawful prescribing has no risks.

They establish that retail prescriptions and the modern illicit fentanyl market are distinct data categories that must not be silently combined.

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Representative Diversion-Control Matters

The following matters illustrate the kinds of cases handled within the Seattle Division’s territory. They do not constitute a complete list, a random sample, or a division-wide performance measure.

Oregon Veterinarian

Criminal admission and sentence

In January 2026, federal prosecutors reported that a Portland-area veterinarian received five years of supervised probation after admitting that she diverted controlled substances and replaced medications with saline. The affected drugs included hydromorphone, buprenorphine, and butorphanol, and prosecutors stated that more than 200 animals were affected. A Portland DEA Diversion Investigator participated in the investigation, and the veterinarian surrendered her DEA registration.

This was not merely an allegation resolved without adjudication. The matter involved an admission and criminal sentencing.

It demonstrates the legitimate role of diversion oversight in veterinary medicine, where drug theft can injure both the lawful institution and animal patients deprived of expected medication.

Spokane Physician

Civil settlement of allegations

In December 2025, a Spokane physician paid $120,000 to resolve federal allegations involving more than 1,400 controlled-substance prescriptions issued to thirteen identified patients between 2017 and 2025. The government alleged that prescriptions lacked legitimate medical purposes or were issued outside the usual course of professional practice and identified combinations involving opioids, benzodiazepines, sedatives, and carisoprodol.

This was a civil settlement.

The allegations should not be rewritten as a criminal conviction. The settlement resolves asserted government claims but does not justify treating every allegation as a jury finding.

Pocatello Physician

Civil settlement and registration restriction

In April 2024, a former Pocatello physician agreed to pay $96,000 and accepted a five-year restriction on his DEA registration. The government alleged that, between 2018 and 2023, he issued prescriptions lacking a legitimate medical purpose or outside the usual course of professional practice, including overlapping prescriptions involving opioids, benzodiazepines, and muscle relaxants.

This matter was also a settlement of allegations.

The public release does not convert those allegations into a criminal conviction.

Omak Hospital

Institutional admission, civil penalty, and corrective action

In 2024, a hospital in Omak, Washington, agreed to pay a $15,000 Controlled Substances Act penalty and undertake corrective action following the theft of hydromorphone by a nurse. The public record reported deficiencies involving institutional controls and review of automated dispensing-cabinet override information.

This matter illustrates that diversion control is not confined to examining prescribing decisions. It also governs institutional inventory, employee access, automated dispensing systems, and the detection of internal theft.

Safeway Pharmacies in Washington and Alaska

Civil settlement with acknowledged reporting failures

A 2017 federal investigation began with Safeway pharmacies in North Bend, Washington, and Wasilla, Alaska. DOJ stated that losses involving tens of thousands of hydrocodone tablets were not reported to DEA until months after employee theft had been discovered.

Safeway paid $3 million, entered a compliance agreement, and acknowledged responsibility for failing to report the missing medications promptly.

The case demonstrates the importance of rapid theft-and-loss reporting. It also shows how a matter arising at two pharmacies within the Seattle Division can expand into a national corporate compliance review.

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What the Representative Matters Show

The cases establish that diversion can occur through:

• Employee theft
• Record or inventory failures
• Prescription practices challenged by the government
• Institutional monitoring failures
• Delayed reports of missing drugs
• Diversion from veterinary care
• Failure to maintain an effective closed distribution system

They do not establish how frequently such conduct occurs among all registrants.

DEA and DOJ press releases are case-selected. They typically describe matters the government considered sufficiently serious, developed, or newsworthy to announce publicly.

Without denominators, the public cannot calculate:

• The percentage of Seattle-area registrants investigated
• The percentage found compliant
• The percentage receiving informal correction
• The percentage subjected to penalties
• The percentage surrendering registrations
• The percentage prevailing in contested proceedings
• The percentage of complaints that were unsubstantiated
• The number of patients affected by each action
• The average time required to resolve a matter

A series of press releases is evidence that cases exist. It is not a complete regulatory dataset.

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Practical Consequences

For Registrants

The Seattle diversion-control system can affect whether a registrant may lawfully handle controlled substances.

Possible outcomes include:

• No action
• Education or technical correction
• Additional recordkeeping requirements
• Corrective-action agreements
• Civil monetary penalties
• Memoranda of agreement
• Restrictions on schedules or activities
• Voluntary surrender
• Administrative proceedings
• Suspension or revocation
• Referral for criminal prosecution

The legal posture of each outcome must be preserved. A voluntary surrender is not automatically a criminal conviction. A civil settlement is not an acquittal, but it is also not a jury verdict. An allegation is not a proven fact merely because the government published it.

For Patients

Patients are not ordinarily the direct subjects of registration enforcement, but they can experience its consequences.

Legitimate benefits may include:

• Detection of stolen medication
• Prevention of forged prescriptions
• Removal of impaired personnel from drug access
• Identification of unsafe or unlawful dispensing
• Correction of weak hospital controls
• Prevention of unauthorized prescribing

Possible adverse consequences may include:

• Loss of a prescriber
• Pharmacy refusal
• Longer travel to care
• Abrupt interruption
• Difficulty transferring records
• Reduced willingness among clinicians to accept complex patients
• Delays while a new provider independently evaluates treatment
• Disproportionate hardship in rural or remote communities

The public record reviewed for this page does not establish how often those adverse consequences occur or whether the Seattle Division caused them in particular cases.

They are foreseeable system effects that require measurement—not accusations that every enforcement action produces harm.

For Rural and Remote Communities

A metropolitan patient may have several hospitals, pharmacies, specialists, and prescribers within driving distance.

A remote Alaskan, eastern Oregon, northern Idaho, or rural Washington patient may not.

Therefore, a federal or state action affecting one facility can have unequal consequences even when the legal standard is identical.

Geographic equality is not always practical equality.

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Public Contact Information

Seattle Headquarters

Address:
300 5th Avenue, Suite 1300
Seattle, Washington 98104

Main telephone: (206) 553-5443

Media Inquiries

Telephone: (571) 387-3831

Recruitment

Telephone: (571) 387-3193
Email: SeattleSpecialAgentRecruiter@dea.gov

Community Outreach

Marcus Pickett
Telephone: 206-225-6804
Email: Marcus.L.Pickett@dea.gov

Diversion Registration Assistance

• Alaska and Washington: 1-888-219-1418
• Idaho: 571-387-2800
• Oregon: 1-888-219-4261

These are registration-assistance numbers. They should not automatically be treated as direct telephone numbers for local Diversion Investigators, supervisors, complaints, enforcement inquiries, or patient grievances.

National Registration Assistance

DEA’s national contact page publishes:

• Drug Registrant Information: (800) 882-9539
• Registration questions: DEA.Registration.Help@dea.gov

People should verify current instructions directly with DEA before relying on archived email addresses, employee names, or older emergency guidance.

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Seeds of Vice Analysis

The following is Seeds of Vice analysis. It is not an official DEA statement.

The Seattle Division’s Defining Feature Is Geographic Asymmetry

The Seattle Division governs a coherent federal territory but four different state medical-regulatory environments.

The same federal Controlled Substances Act operates alongside:

• Four professional-licensing systems
• Four pharmacy systems
• Four prescription-monitoring structures
• Different state prescribing rules
• Different rural-access conditions
• Different public-health institutions

The division’s responsibility is regional. The practical consequences are local.

Public Transparency Is Strongest at the Top

DEA clearly publishes:

• The division’s four states
• The headquarters
• The field locations
• The Special Agent in Charge
• General contact numbers
• Selected press releases

Transparency becomes weaker as the inquiry moves into the diversion system itself.

The public cannot readily determine:

• Who commands regional diversion operations
• How responsibility is divided among the four states
• Which offices contain diversion personnel
• How many registrants are supervised
• What the annual regulatory workload is
• How frequently inspections lead to correction rather than punishment
• How many actions affect ongoing patient care
• Whether access disruptions are documented and reviewed

That is an institutional accountability gap.

Enforcement Announcements Reveal Cases, Not the System

The representative cases show why diversion control exists. Drug theft, falsified records, delayed reporting, and unlawful prescribing can cause real harm.

But a collection of successful prosecutions and settlements cannot answer the larger accountability questions.

The public needs both:

• Evidence of wrongdoing addressed
• Evidence of legitimate medicine preserved

A regulatory agency should be capable of measuring both.

Reduced Prescribing Is Not a Complete Measure of Success

Prescribing rates have declined.

That fact alone does not establish whether:

• Diversion declined
• Pain treatment improved
• Patients became safer
• Clinicians became more accurate
• Clinicians became more fearful
• Legitimate access remained adequate
• Patients migrated to illicit markets
• Untreated pain increased
• Pharmacy barriers increased

A system that counts medicine removed but does not count legitimate treatment lost cannot fully demonstrate balance.

The Central Question

The most important public-accountability question is not whether the Seattle Division has brought legitimate cases.

It has.

The question is whether the institution can demonstrate, with comparable evidence, that it protects lawful medical access while exercising its authority.

That obligation already exists within DEA’s own stated mission.

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Recommended Public Disclosures

Seeds of Vice recommends that the Seattle Division or DEA publish an annual four-state diversion-control report containing:

Personnel and Structure

• Current regional diversion organizational chart
• Named senior diversion official
• Supervisory chain by state
• Office classification for every listed location
• Number of Diversion Investigators and support personnel by state
• Clear explanation of which offices handle registration, compliance, investigation, and enforcement

Registration

• Number of active registrants by state and registrant type
• New applications
• Renewals
• Modifications
• Denials
• Average processing time
• Pending application counts
• Reasons for significant delays

Compliance and Enforcement

• Inspections conducted
• Registrants found compliant
• Technical deficiencies corrected
• Warning letters
• Administrative subpoenas
• Inspection warrants
• Memoranda of agreement
• Civil settlements
• Voluntary surrenders
• Immediate suspension orders
• Orders to show cause
• Revocations
• Contested cases
• Dismissals or government withdrawals

Theft and Loss

• Reports received
• Types and quantities of substances reported
• Employee-diversion matters
• Average investigation and closure times
• Institutional corrective actions
• Trends by registrant category

Lawful Access and Continuity

• Number of patients potentially affected by registration actions
• Continuity-of-care procedures
• Coordination with state boards and health departments
• Record-transfer requirements
• Rural-access assessments
• Emergency dispensing or referral arrangements
• Complaints involving abrupt treatment disruption
• Findings concerning whether legitimate supply remained adequate

Data Governance

• How DEA obtains or uses information from each state PMP
• Legal processes required
• Audit and access controls
• Data-retention practices
• Procedures for correcting inaccurate information
• Safeguards against treating raw prescribing volume as proof of unlawful conduct

These disclosures would not require DEA to reveal active investigative techniques or protected personal information.

They would allow the public to evaluate the institution as a regulatory system rather than only through selected enforcement announcements.

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Methodology and Evidentiary Limits

This page was fully reviewed through July 25, 2026.

Priority was given to:

• DEA
• DEA Diversion Control
• United States Department of Justice
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• Washington state agencies
• Oregon state agencies
• Idaho state agencies
• Alaska state agencies

The following rules were applied:

1. Current personnel are identified only when supported by a current official source.
2. Historical personnel are not presented as current officials.
3. Office classifications are not inferred when DEA does not clearly publish them.
4. The Seattle Field Division is distinguished from the national Diversion Control Division.
5. Broader narcotics enforcement is separated from diversion-control work.
6. Allegations, settlements, admissions, guilty pleas, convictions, administrative actions, and voluntary surrenders are not treated as equivalent.
7. Press releases are treated as selected case records, not comprehensive statistics.
8. State prescribing data are presented as state context, not Seattle Division performance data.
9. Prescription rates, patient percentages, dosages, MME measures, overdose deaths, and drug seizures are not combined into one statistical series.
10. Missing historical years are not interpolated.
11. No causal relationship is claimed merely because prescribing, enforcement, and overdose trends occurred during overlapping periods.
12. Possible effects on patients are identified as possible consequences or reasoned inferences unless direct evidence establishes them.
13. Seeds of Vice analysis is separated from the official record.

The Seattle Division’s public record establishes a substantial four-state federal presence.

It does not yet provide the information necessary to measure the complete regional diversion-control system, the proportionality of its interventions, or its success in preserving adequate and uninterrupted access to lawful medicine.