OUTRAGE, AND URGENCY, MISSING IN SOUTH FLORIDA'S DRUG WAR

ISSUE: The death toll from overdoses is rising across South
Florida.

South Florida isn't exactly winning the drug war. In fact, in the void
of a concerted strategy on the front lines, investigators are
out-gunned, and the body count is rising.

According to a recent South Florida Sun-Sentinel story, more people
died in Palm Beach County from cocaine-related overdoses than in any
other county in Florida last year, when the death toll marked a 39
percent climb over 2002 figures -- despite a slight drop in fatalities
from 2005.

Broward County, too, is seeing a continual rise in overdose deaths,
not just from cocaine, but from the painkiller oxycodone.

And yet, where's the outrage? People are dying senselessly,
increasingly by mixing drugs, like cocaine and oxycodone, or washing
down some painkillers with a quart of vodka, and it's hardly
registering a blip on society's radar screen.

It would be a mistake, though, to assume that drug abuse or the
increasing propensity for it to claim a life, will not affect you.
State analysts and Broward researchers are finding that no community
or age group in either county is immune from the heartache of overdose
deaths.

What can be done? For starters, considering the proliferation of pain
clinics that double as cash-only pill mills down here, Florida can
turn to the kind of prescription monitoring program that has proven
successful in other states. But legislators have twice nixed measures
creating a program that computerizes the prescription histories of
patients and doctors alike because of privacy concerns.

It's a common, and legitimate, worry, but it can't be the last word.
While state officials are working to come up with an alternative plan,
the body count keeps growing, and South Florida inches ever closer to
losing the drug war.

BOTTOM LINE: People are dying senselessly; where's the outrage and
urgency to find a solution?