South FL “Pill Mills”  have become a booming tourist attraction—and a genteelness ground for felon activity

They arrive at hurting direction clinic in south FL by them? carload.

Armed with cash and dissimulator MRIs, the out-of-state visitor travel from clinic to clinic with concocted narration of hurting The clinic MD perform cursory test before prescribing century of potent pills.

The visitor return to KY Ohio, West Virginia and Tennessee with enough hurting pill to get their own mess and sell the balance for a handsome lucre The MD and clinic proprietor make out well, too, sometimes pocketing decade of yard of dollar in a bingle day.

It’s a booming tourism industry, but one that functionary in Florida, the largest state without a operation prescription drug monitoring program, are scrambling to eliminate. They say many of the state’s 1,000-plus hurting direction clinic are nothing more than pill Mills that operate outside the compass of legitimate hurting checkup specialty practices, which are often associated with hospitals and universities, and put addictive hurting pill in the hands of drug traffickers, monger and abusers.

And the MD who work at them? They are “really a drug dealer with a white coat on,” said Bruce Grant, managing director of Florida’s Office of drug Control.

In Florida, six people die each day from prescription drug overdoses, grant said. That’s more than three times the number of expiry from all other illicit drug combined.

In Kentucky, where law busted a prescription drug trafficking ring with FL connections last fall, the number of overdoses is greater than that of main road fatalities.

“This is the number one problem facing America, period,” said Chris Mathes, sheriff of Howard Howard Carter County, Tenn. “People don’t have to do diacetylmorphine no More They can go to a hurting clinic and get the same high.”

$60 A Pill

Mathes, who served as a U.S. drug Enforcement disposal agent before becoming sheriff, said his rural county has been flooded with the hurting pill that people bring back from FL clinics.

Users will wage dealer $60 to $80 for a bingle pill on the street, he said.

In April, the trip south turned deadly for one of the occupant of Howard Carter County.

Authorities say Dame Alice Ellen Terry E. Williams, 46, of Dr. Johnson City, Tenn., drove to FL with his ex and another man to obtain prescription drugs. Williams’ traveling familiar said he often gave them order and wouldn’t let them do what they wanted to while in south Florida, prompting them to beat and strangle him,  according to investigators.

They returned to TN in his truck, pickings off with $1,600 of his money and a large amount of oxycodone pills. before acquiring caught.

Williams’ body was found in a room of a Red Roof inn in Broward county Fla., an area that has been described as the nation’s pill factory capital.

Here’s how quickly things went sour in Broward: In 2007, the county had just four hurting clinics. By the end of 2009, there were 115.

Officials say the proliferation of FL pill Mills was due in large part to the fact that other states  created monitoring programme that curtailed physician shopping As of June, 33 states had operational drug-tracking database that allow physicians, druggist and law enforcement officer to course the flowing of controlled substance and topographic point the people who collect narcotic from multiple clinics.

When occupant of those states could no longer obtain large quantity of prescription drugs with ease, they went someplace where they still could.

“It’s amazing how much word of oral fissure has fueled this epidemic,” said Sgt. Richard Pisanti,, who Pb a Broward county Sheriff’s unit of measurement that fights prescription drug recreation “People knew to stop in Broward county because they thought it was a gateway.”

Crime spiked around the hurting clinics. user passed out in the parking lots patrolled by armed guards. Though the clinic quickly Drew scrutiny from law enforcement, building causa against them proved difficult.

Unscrupulous MD and their so-called patient claimed the prescription were legitimate. Going after the street-level dealer and their emptor had its own set of problems, namely that the pill could be sold and consumed with virtually no evidence trail.

Raids and Moratoriums

But law enforcement functionary say they are slowly gaining ground.

As local governments throughout FL have passed moratorium on hurting clinics. the concern already in operation have been the target of a number of Holocene epoch raids.

At one clinic alone, five MD ordered more than 2 million oxycodone pill in 2009, according to a forfeit complaint filed in United States government District judicature Their prescription ranked them each among the nation’s top 20 practician emptor of the medicine.

In October, KY authorities obtained apprehension warrant for more than 500 people involved in a drug trafficking organisation that obtained hurting pill in FL and distributed them back home illegally. The roundup, dubbed “Operation flamingo Road,” was the largest ever in Kentucky.

“It put a small dent into the problem,” said lieutenant St. David Jude, spokesman for the KY State Police.

The FL Department of wellness now has about a half dozen investigators working with law enforcement around the state, including one embedded in Broward county since the beginning of this year in an attempt to improve communications between the agencies.

And, under a new law passed this spring, the department will behavior annual inspection of the previously unregulated hurting clinics. start this fall, research worker will be allowed to reappraisal medical record and seek legal action against clinic that practice badness medicine.

The new law also parallel bars people convicted of drug felonies from owning clinics. and bound MD to dispensing no more than a 72-hour supply of hurting pill to patient who wage by cash, check or recognition card.

And in December, Sunshine State is slated to finally join the rank of  states that have prescription drug monitoring programme in operation Nationwide, 42 states have enacted statute law for drug-tracking databases. Arkansas, Georgia, Maryland, Missouri, Montana, NE and the district of Columbia River have no such programs, while legislation is pending in Delaware and New Hampshire.

Grant, the managing director of the Florida’s drug control office, doesn’t expect the pill mill problem to vanish overnight. But he is optimistic that the tougher restriction will deter some, shut down others and keep new clinic from opening.

“Hopefully,” he said. “they’ll spread like roach in the night when you shed a light on them.”

Colleen Jenkins cover felon justice issue for the St. Petersburg Times.

Photo by quimby via Flickr.