Florida: Proud Sponsor of Pill Mills????
Not being a Miami resident, I haven’t been “up” on the things Carl Hiassen has been writing about these days in his newspaper work. I love his work as a novelist — so the insight and incisiveness he displays here is no real surprise to me.
Governor Scott’s stance on this issue is, however, surprising. Is it something in the water? He opposes a database that would track prescriptions for Vicodin, Percoset and Oxy, on the grounds that it’s an invasion of privacy.
Well, gee. He must believe Florida doesn’t have a problem. Yet….
Why would any sane or sober public official go out of his way — very publicly — to protect pill pushers and crooked doctors?
Thirty-eight states use databases to keep track of oxycodone and other painkillers that are now the most widely abused (and lethal) drugs in the country.
Florida is the largest state without such a database, and the undisputed epicenter of the sleazy illegal pill trade.
In the first six months of 2010, doctors in Florida prescribed nine times more oxycodone than was sold in the entire United States during that same period. Pain mills here have prospered wildly and proliferated – in Broward County alone there are 130.
Two years ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature approved a painkiller database, which would be privately funded. Law enforcement officers say it’s an absolutely essential tool for attacking storefront clinics and the drug dealers who flock to Florida from throughout the eastern United States.
Read more: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/02/26/2086113/pill-mills-thrive-as-gov-scott.html#ixzz1FT3waayF
What drug problem?