Pill Mills Moving from Florida to Georgia

At the beginning of 2012, prescriptions written at "pain centers" or "pain management clinics" were responsible for at least 7 Floridians dying every day. Thanks to a combination of actions taken by legislators and law enforcement statewide, the number of overdose deaths is finally declining and indicators show that the Florida doctors are practicing medicine, particularly pain management, responsibly.

Meanwhile, in Georgia  the number of mills has surged more than tenfold since the crackdown in Florida and other southern states. The DEA is investigating anyone who moved from Florida to Georgia and opened a pain clinic, but new ones keep poppingup. The legislature might want to take note of Florida's success, and copy some of their tactics, including:

• Entering data in and querying the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Database
• Passing laws against doctors selling oxycodone, opening "pain clinics"
• Passing laws against drug distributors and pharmacies that sell high volumes of controlled substances
• Committing sufficient resources to prosecute over-prescribing doctors and individuals involved in the prescription pill trade

The last part is critical. The legislature has passed a PDMP law, but the system is not yet up and running. Lawmakers are considering legislation to require stricter licensing for pain clinics, but it's not clear how this program would be managed. 

CDC Working to Prevent Painkiller Overdoses

In response to the skyrocketing deaths from prescription painkiller overdoses, the CDC put together a handy guide on what they're doing to prevent it, called "Saving Lives and Protecting People: Preventing Prescription Painkiller Overdoses." It's also available for download as a pdf.

The cost of not taking these critical steps is clear:

Overdoses of prescription painkillers (also called opioid or narcotic pain relievers) have more than tripled in the past 20 years, killing more than 15,500 people in the United States in 2009.

Overdose deaths are only part of the problem—for each death involving prescription painkillers, hundreds of people abuse or misuse these drugs:

• Emergency department visits for prescription painkiller abuse or misuse have doubled in the past 5 years to nearly half a million. 

• About 12 million American teens and adults reported using prescription painkillers to get “high” or for other nonmedical reasons.

• Nonmedical use of prescription painkillers costs more than $72.5 billion each year in direct health care costs.