A.R.S. § 13-3408 — Narcotic Drugs

What the statute covers

The offenses parallel the dangerous drug statute: possession or use (a class 4 felony), possession for sale (class 2), possession of equipment or chemicals for manufacturing, manufacturing, administering to another, obtaining by fraud — including prescription fraud — and transporting or offering for sale (class 2). Pills possessed without a valid prescription are charged under this statute exactly as street drugs are.

Penalties and threshold amounts

Simple possession as a first offense is Prop 200-eligible: probation with treatment is mandatory and prison is unavailable for a first or second personal-possession conviction. The picture inverts for sale-class charges at or above the statutory threshold amount — nine grams of cocaine, one gram of heroin, or a value-based threshold for others — where probation is off the table and prison is mandatory. With fentanyl, threshold quantities are reached by a handful of pills, which is how people with a personal-use habit end up facing mandatory-prison sale charges.

Defenses

The Fourth Amendment does the heaviest lifting: unlawful stops, searches, and warrants suppress the evidence and end most cases they touch. Knowledge and control are next — cars and homes with multiple occupants raise genuine questions about whose drugs the State can prove they were. In sale cases, the personal-use alternative matters enormously because of where the threshold rules put the stakes. Addiction is also real mitigation: treatment-anchored resolutions are often available and often the best outcome on offer.

These cases move quickly from charge to plea deadline, and the difference between possession and possession-for-sale framing is the difference between probation and prison. Start with the drug possession defense page, or the plain-language guide to first-offense drug possession.