By Michael Peltier
The News Service of Florida
Retirees aren’t the only group rushing to South Florida as a flood of addicts head south to get their drugs, legally and with a doctor’s prescription.
A wave of people have headed to Broward and Miami-Dade counties with cash in hand to buy a cornucopia of legally prescribed drugs including Oxycontin and other opiates. The result is that prescription medication deaths far outnumber those from illegal drugs.
The lynchpins of the operations are physicians willing to prescribe the drugs whether they are needed or not, says Bruce Grant, director of the Florida Office of Drug Control. While the vast majority of physicians prescribe correctly, a handful of docs are writing out hundreds of prescriptions daily to patients they may not have even examined.
“They are nothing more than drug dealers in white coats,” Grant told reporters Thursday.
Grant on Thursday was stumping for a handful of measures filed in the Legislature to rein in “pill mills”, the traffickers who own them and the doctors who make them tick.
Existing Florida law makes it relatively easy for pain clinics to open. Licensing requirements, or lack thereof, are part of the problem, officials say. In 2008, more than 2,800 deaths were attributed to prescription drug overdoses.
Broward and Miami-Dade Counties have long been popular venues, Palm Beach County has also become active in a growing drug trade that extends from Florida north into Kentucky and other Appalachian states, officials say. This week local law enforcement officials arrested the owners of clinics in Palm Beach County following a 14-month investigation.
“South Florida is the epicenter of this problem,” said Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp, who was at a news conference Thursday in support of the legislation.
Lawmakers last year passed legislation making it easier to monitor physicians who appear to over-prescribe. This year, a number of bills have been filed to expand those earlier efforts.
Two measures, HB 1499, by Rep. Marcello Llorente, R-Miami and SB 2722 by Sen. Mike Fasano, R-New Port Richey, would require more physician training. The measures are similar to others — HB 373 by Rep. Joseph Abruzzo, D-Wellington and SB 646 by Sen. Dave Aronberg, R-Greenacres – that would require that pain clinics be owned by physicians in good standing, prevent convicted felons from opening up shop and restrict the number of prescriptions a doctor can prescribe.
Another group of measures – HB 671 by Rep. Kelly Skidmore, D-Boca Raton and SB 804 by Sen. Dan Gelber, D-Miami Beach, would put more teeth in Florida Department of Health licensure and oversight of clinics and physicians.
