POLICE SHOULD PUSH HARDER ON PILL MILLS

A serious crackdown on the illicit use of prescription drugs now under
way in Florida should change the Sunshine State's disgraceful
reputation as a pill-mill state.

It's a new type of drug war that law enforcement officials believe
will save lives.

Federal and state officials announced results last week from a
three-year investigation known as Operation Oxy Alley in which 32
people were arrested, mostly in South Florida. The charges ranged from
intent to distribute controlled substances to racketeering conspiracy
- -- the latter charge being a relatively new strategy in the fight
against the abuse of prescription drugs. It will likely not be the
last time federal and state officials pursue operators of pill mills
as organized crime participants and racketeers.

It is unfortunate that police and prosecutors have to get involved in
policing prescription drugs. But widespread abuse has forced the hand
of state lawmakers and law enforcement.

According to a report by the state Medical Examiners Commission, 3,514
Floridians died in 2010 from just three classes of drugs: oxycodone,
benzodiazipines and methadone. That's more than three times the number
of people -- 1,133 -- who died from alcohol and cocaine in 2010.

About seven Floridians die every day from the abuse of prescription
drugs. According to the report, 19 to 24 people per 100,000 residents
in Volusia County died as a result of oxycodone in 2010. In Flagler
County, seven to 13 persons per 100,000 residents died of oxycodone
poisoning in 2010.

Then there are the growing jail populations, the growing legions of
addicts and skyrocketing health-care costs. Police are increasingly
finding pills -- not cocaine or meth -- on suspects. In 2005, Volusia
County authorities seized 619 pills. In the first half of 2011, they
had already seized 18,439.

Operation Oxy Alley examined what police said was a chain of pill
mills in South Florida. According to the prosecutors, an office
manager at one of the offices was told to "keep the patients happy."
Doctors could earn from $2,000 to $6,000 per day. One Lake Worth
clinic was seeing as many as 500 patients a day. In 20 months, the
clinic wrote 67,000 prescriptions for oxycodone, the powerful pain
medication, as well as Xanax, a benzodiazepine, and Soma, a muscle
relaxant.

Palm Beach County prosecutors also targeted a doctor and staffers with
a murder charge for the 2009 death of 24-year-old Joseph Bartolucci.
Police say the patient died of an overdose of hydromorphone and
anti-anxiety drugs the day after he got prescriptions for them.

The passage last spring of a new state law targeting pill mills and
the aggressive stings we have seen of late, from Palm Beach County to
Volusia County, show that Florida finally has gone on the offensive
against prescription drug abuse. In recent years, the state has racked
up some truly terrible statistics, such as the fact that 85 percent of
all oxycodone sales occurred in Florida.

Such drugs are leaving a trail of bodies in Florida and creating
addicts in many other states.

Police and prosecutors need to push even harder to end this scourge.
And officials need to be prepared to provide treatment for addicts who
easily obtained highly addictive drugs when Florida was the pill
capital of the United States.