Prescription drug overdose deaths soar in Florida
Fatal overdoses from prescription drugs jumped again in 2008 -- a trend fueled by Florida's abundance of storefront pain clinics, police and health officials say, while cocaine deaths dipped.
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•New Florida law takes aim at illegal pill trade
New Florida law takes aim at illegal pill trade
Gov. Charlie Crist on Thursday signed legislation aimed at curbing the growing black market of illegal prescription drugs flowing from South Florida pain clinics across the eastern United States.

The new law, passed nearly unanimously in the Legislature, will require doctors and pharmacists to record patient prescriptions for most drugs in a state-controlled database.

This would allow healthcare professionals -- and police and regulators, in some circumstances -- to detect patients who go to multiple doctors seeking pills, a practice known as ``doctor shopping.''

•Florida Senate approves bill to track prescription drug
Florida Senate approves bill to track prescription drug
sales

After years of stalled efforts to stop prescription-drug abuse and slow the state's growing pain clinic industry, the Florida Senate on Friday passed legislation to create a statewide prescription drug monitoring system to track those ''doctor shopping'' for addictive pills.

The proposal by Sen. Mike Fasano, a New Port Richey Republican, was approved 39-0 and would create a statewide database to track the prescriptions written and filled for certain medications, including narcotic painkillers such as oxycodone.

•Law may lack teeth to rein in pill mills
Law may lack teeth to rein in pill mills
Todd E. Watson, owner of the South Florida Pain Relief & Injury Center, now resides in a cell at the Broward County Jail, a month after his arrest on charges of trafficking prescription painkillers.

But business continues to hum along at his Oakland Park pain clinic.

With state lawmakers poised to approve reforms to curb illegal pill trafficking through South Florida's pain clinics, Watson's case highlights the legal gaps that have allowed these clinics to proliferate with little scrutiny -- loopholes largely untouched by the new proposals.
BY SCOTT HIAASEN
shiaasen@MiamiHerald.com
Florida continues to see a rapid rise in fatal overdoses caused by prescription-drug abuse -- a trend fueled by a cottage industry of cash-only pain clinics -- while deaths from illegal drugs wane, according to a report from the state's medical examiners released Tuesday.

Nearly 1,000 deaths were caused in 2008 by the potent painkiller oxycodone -- a 33 percent increase from 2007, the report says. Four years ago, only 340 deaths statewide were attributed to oxycodone, the most popular drug in the black-market pill trade supplied by pain clinics.

Conversely, deaths from cocaine overdoses declined by 23 percent, to 648 in 2008.

Overall, prescription drugs accounted for 75 percent of the drugs found in overdose victims last year, the report says.

''The magnitude and severity of prescription drug abuse calls for strong, coordinated action,'' said Bill Janes, the director of the state's Office of Drug Control, in a written statement.

Florida took a step in that direction when the Legislature passed a law creating a statewide database to monitor prescription sales and increasing oversight of pain clinics, which operate with little scrutiny.

The prescription database is designed to detect addicts and drug dealers buying pills from multiple doctors -- often by faking ailments or medical records -- a practice known as ``doctor shopping.''

''It's almost impossible to monitor different people shopping doctors,'' said Dr. Joshua Perper, Broward County's medical examiner. ``A person can get hundreds or thousands of pills.''

This can also lead to dangerous drug combinations. Perper said the most common overdoses involve mixing several drugs, with oxycodone and anti-anxiety drugs such as Xanax and Valium among the most common combinations.

Though the new prescription monitoring law takes effect Wednesday, the database is not expected to begin operating until late next year.

Broward has become the nation's capital of illegal prescription drug trafficking, police say, with nearly 100 storefront pain clinics feeding a black market in pain pills stretching through Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Massachusetts. Florida leads the nation in oxycodone sales -- largely because of these clinics -- according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration data.

In 2008, Perper's office detected oxycodone in 171 Broward County overdose deaths -- more than twice the number found in 2005.

The highest number of oxycodone overdoses were reported in Pinellas and Pasco counties, where the drug was detected in 308 deaths last year.

The medical examiner in that district, Dr. Jon Thogmartin, attributes the unusually high number to advanced detection techniques employed by his lab.

''Prescription drugs have really begun, to a significant degree, to replace illicit drugs,'' Thogmartin said.

Thogmartin said many victims overdose on pills prescribed to them by licensed doctors.

To health advocates, this shows that doctors practicing as pain-management specialists need more training and more oversight from the state medical board.

''It's unacceptable to open up a practice and call yourself a pain management physician and start writing prescriptions,'' said Dr. Laura Brown, a Bradenton physician on the board of the American Society of Interventional Pain Physicians. ``That's not pain management.''




Any thought on what Florida is doing...To me its about time!!!!!!!!!1

Hmmmm my thought is that if government (state AND federal) keeps sticking its nose into the medical field where it doesn't belong, we may see a shortage of Doctors before too long.... Pill trafficking goes on everywhere, not just in FL. Its up to the insurance companies to monitor "Doctor shopping", not the government. Another example of the U.S. going socialist, nothing new...

"The new law, passed nearly unanimously in the Legislature, will require doctors and pharmacists to record patient prescriptions for most drugs in a state-controlled database."

I don't understand why they weren't doing this already.

I just saw on the news there was a bust in Fl. for this sort of thing..

I had a friend die from overdosing on them. The DR prescribed him 750 oxys the last month of his life. That would be taking 1 an hour!!!

I personally have no problem with what they passed.

Are these real doctors at these pain clinics? If they are then maybe we need a few less of these type of doctors. what is a drag is that for some people that do not abuse drugs they end up with glorified asprin because of other people's abuses.

Thats my point. I get 90 xanax a month but that doesn't mean I have to take 3 a day.

I mean that people should not be penalized for what others do by having to jump through hoops to get what they really need because of doctors that abuse perscriptions. Then other doctors worry more about law suites then giving patients what they really need for pain.

Well I suppose like in the case of Michael Jackson's personal physician (who was paid $150,000 a month), money does indeed talk for alot of them.... it's no secret that we live in a greedy, self-fulfilling society. But having gov't wanting to control everything is only to make matters worse.