Statewide Pill Mill Bust
July 6th, 2011 by flanewsThe prescription drug database set to go online next month is being delayed until October. The news comes one day after 105-thousand painkillers were seized at 24 Florida pain clinics. As Whitney Ray tells us, a new law is giving the state’s drug enforcement strike force the authority they need to rid Florida of its title as pill mill capital of the nation.
State agents seized 105-thousand painkillers Tuesday, raiding 24 Florida pain clinics. But no arrests were made.
Jenn Meale, a spokeswoman for the Attorney Generals office, says the raid should serve as a warning to pain clinics. But if the message hasn’t sunk in by August 1st.
“That doctor will faces stricter penalties and that includes criminal and administrative penalties,” said Meale.
The Attorney General, FDLE, The Department of health and local police formed a drug enforcement strike force to bust pill mills. The strike force was created in March, but lacked authority to raid clinics until this month when a law banning doctors from selling certain drugs took hold.
The law only bans doctors from selling powerful pain killers and other addictive drugs. They can still sell glasses and other prescription right from their clinics.
More tools to stop pain clinics will go into effect later this year. Among them the long awaited prescription drug database. State Senate Mike Fasano ushered the database through a lack of funding and political attacks.
“For those who have concerns Whitney, this is a database that will only track narcotics, the Oxycontins, the Xanax of the world and only doctors and pharmacists will have access to it,” said Fasano.
There are an estimated 8-hundred pain clinics in Florida. They now have a choice. Stop selling powerful pain killers or risk prison. Doctors caught breaking the law could be charged with a third degree felony, punishable by up to five years in prison and a 5-thouand dollar fine.
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