LAKE COUNTY MOVES TO STOP 'PILL MILLS'

TAVARES -- Two mothers who lost sons to overdoses of prescription
painkillers applauded county commissioners for imposing new
restrictions on pain-management clinics that dispense the medicine.

"I hope this saves lives," said Ellen Tidwell of Clermont, whose
17-year-old son, Justin, died from a prescription-drug overdose in
July 2009, a month before beginning his senior year at South Lake High
School.

Tidwell, who also has called attention to the problem on her Facebook
page, stood alongside Kim and Michael Cronin of Howey-in-the-Hills,
whose son, Paul Cronin, 32, overdosed on hydrocodone in October 2009.

Though unclear about how their sons obtained the pills that killed
them, both families say the new rules allow for a "time out" here to
allow further study on the issue by state and local officials
concerned about the abuse.

Florida's lax oversight of pain clinics has been blamed for feeding
so-called "pillbillies," addicts from Kentucky and other Appalachian
states who trek south to obtain stockpiles of painkillers to abuse or
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Aiming to deter a growing illegal prescription-drug trade in Lake,
commissioners imposed a temporary moratorium on permits for new pain
clinics and added restrictions to existing clinics.

The new rules also will affect clinics operating in Lake
cities.

The restrictions, similar to those adopted by the cities of Orlando
and Mount Dora and Orange and Seminole counties, limit the clinics'
hours of operation to six days a week and ban cash-only
transactions.

Authorities say unscrupulous pain clinics often operate as cash-only
"pill mills," where doctors dole out addictive prescription-only
sedatives and painkillers to customers with only a cursory exam.

Critics complain that some customers are addicts rather than
patients.

More than 800 pain clinics operate in Florida, including 13 in Lake.
Prescription-drug overdoses have killed more than 5,000 people in
Florida over the past two years.

Federal agents have cracked down on Florida pill mills in recent
weeks, shuttering some in South Florida, arresting nearly two dozen
people, including four doctors, and seizing dozens of exotic cars,
including Lamborghinis.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, drug dispensers
in Florida ordered about 44.1 million pain pills in the first half of
2010, more than were ordered by dispensers in the nation's other 49
states combined.

"We're not talking about legitimate doctor's offices," Commissioner
Leslie Campione said.

Both families also called on Gov. Rick Scott to reconsider his
opposition to a statewide prescription-pill monitoring database, which
could help with investigating fraud and discourage "doctor shopping."
It also would help authorities track patients who are getting
excessive numbers of pills from multiple doctors.

"I don't know what the governor's thinking or what his problem is,"
Michael Cronin said.

Scott has raised concerns about the database's cost, effectiveness and
possible privacy intrusions.