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Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4078 · Article 4. Requirements for Prescriptions

Bus. & Prof. Code, § 4078

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) (1) No person shall place a false or misleading label on a prescription.

(2) No prescriber shall direct that a prescription be labeled with any information that is false or misleading.

(b) Notwithstanding subdivision (a), a person may label a prescription, or a prescriber may direct that a prescription be labeled, with information about the drug that is false under either of the following circumstances:

(1) If the labeling is a necessary part of a clinical or investigational drug program approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration or a legitimate investigational drug project involving a drug previously approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration.

(2) If, in the medical judgment of the prescriber, the labeling is appropriate for the proper treatment of the patient.

(c) The furnisher of a prescription labeled pursuant to subdivision (b) shall make, and retain for three years from the date of making, a record stating the manner in which the information on the prescription label varies from the actual drug in the container and documenting the order of the prescriber to so label the container. The prescriber shall make, and retain for at least three years, a record of his or her order to so label the container.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 1999, Ch. 655, Sec. 48. Effective January 1, 2000.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=BPC&sectionNum=4078.
Text hash
sha256 94622e4f8850ef7492b0f0f8f9c5b354ea6fd8af44a69a812b85bb19a7f44c7c
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.