With South Florida beginning to crack down, the pain pill mills that fuel the Appalachian drug trade are moving northward. Kate Howard and Paul Pinkham of the Florida Times-Union report that the trade, which has ravaged Appalachia for a decade and exploded in recent years, has hit Jacksonville with a vengeance. There are more than 50 pain clinics in the area, and they even tell stories of 20-something clinic owners and physicians driving sports cars and intimidating each other in competition for the lucrative out-of-state trade. Florida’s first statewide steps to combat the trade haven’t yet taken hold, the duo writes.
After years of trying, Florida became the 39th state to pass a prescription monitoring bill last year, but it wasn’t funded. Amid lingering questions about its potential effectiveness, the database was slated to launch in December with $500,000 raised through grants and private funding, but is now on hold because of a bid dispute.
Even if Florida does succeed in stopping the pill mills, there are fears that tough legislation will just push the problem into neighboring (and less regulated) Georgia.
Why is it so hard to crack down on pill mills?
Across the state, Letitia Stein and Susan Taylor Martin of the St. Petersburg Times explore what makes it so impossible to shut down the handful of rogue doctors who can each put thousands of pills a day into the hands of abusers. In some ways, it’s similar to other disciplined doctors stories we’ve been seeing lately, as it carefully details the administrative wasteland that stands between local doctors and actual punishment for their actions. Cases languish for an average of 18 months, there is not always consistent communication between enforcement agencies, and disciplinary board members say they don’t have the legal power to search for problem doctors.
“The biggest problem is. we can’t discipline anybody unless a complaint is filed,” said Rosenberg, a West Palm Beach dermatologist on the Board of Medicine. “And drug addicts aren’t about to complain about their drug dealer.”
Stein and Martin looked at about 200 Florida doctors who had been disciplined or investigated for inappropriately prescribing pain pills in the past five years, and found that more than a quarter still have active licenses. Most of them are experienced doctors with specialty certifications, and some practice despite being convicted of crimes or linked to fatal overdoses.
And Florida’s new legislative crackdown on pill mills? The reporters say it specifically targets pain clinics, yet rogue physicians often operate out of other settings.
