PAIN CLINIC PERMITS HALTED

Ordinance A Response To Rising Prescription Drug-Related Deaths

MANDEVILLE - In an effort to halt a rising epidemic of prescription
drug-related deaths in St. Tammany Parish, the Parish Council enacted
a 30-day emergency ordinance Thursday evening to halt permits and
licenses for new pain management clinics.

The bill, introduced by District 12 Councilman Jerry Binder, is part
of a greater effort by St. Tammany Parish law enforcement and
government officials to crack down on illegal prescription drug
distribution.

"These pain management clinics are nothing more than pill mills,"
Capt. David Hall, commander of the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office
Narcotics Division, told council members.

The Narcotics Division, Hall said, began targeting pain clinics three
years ago after investigators noticed a sharp increase in prescription
drug overdoses and deaths in St. Tammany.

Over the last three years overdose deaths from prescription drugs have
doubled from 29 to 56, according to St. Tammany Parish Coroner's
Office statistics. Additionally, investigators tracked more than 80
overdoses in the area of pain management clinics, physicians over
prescribing narcotics and pharmacies filling large prescriptions,
Sheriff's Office authorities said.

In that three-year span prescription drug overdoses have overtaken
cocaine as the number one deadliest drug in St. Tammany, Hall said.

The Sheriff's Office is working on several operations in regards to
parish pain clinics, Hall said. The moratorium will allow the
Sheriff's Office to focus on current investigations without having to
cover new clinics, he said.

Currently, people from as far away as Oklahoma are traveling to St.
Tammany Parish to fill prescriptions at pain clinics, Hall said,
though most out-of-state customers come from Mississippi. Many
patients caravan in numbers to fill prescriptions for intensive pain
drugs like Loratab, Vicodin, Tylox and Methadone, Hall said.

"I'm not sure the last time you've been to the doctor, but I bet you
didn't show up with your five closest friends," Hall said.

District 1 Councilman Marty Dean, who has worked in drug
rehabilitation for 20 years, expressed his support for the project
during the meeting.

"It's like killing a fly with a elephant gun," Dean said of the pain
medicines prescribed at the clinics. "If you had to take methadone for
pain, you're pretty much dead with pain. But people, young adults, are
coming in with tablets and tablets and tablets of methadone, and they
are getting them directly from these pain clinics."

Council members voted unanimously for the ordinance. The council also
introduced a separate six-month moratorium which will be voted upon at
the April council meeting.