Mark75

So, have you guys read about the DEA crackdown on pill mills in south Florida...

Police raid South Florida pill mills - Miami-Dade - MiamiHerald.com

I had no idea that it was that bad down there.

kiki5711

wow! they just get more creative..............it's never going to stop.

bugsmum

Holy cow! If I had lived in Florida several years ago, I'm afraid I wouldn't be here now... I wonder how many people these doctors have killed indirectly through overdose? This is horrible.

glitter

Just about every online "pharmacy" (my main suppliers) I used from 2004-2009 was based in Florida.

Despicable, sick people.

What's really bad is that now that this supply of opiates has been cut off for 100's, maybe 1000's of addicts around the country, they (the addicts) have no where to get their drug unless they hit the streets or doctor shop. I'm willing to bet - 100% - that there will be a lot of cold-turkey abstinence attemps by the addicts who used these places. The sad part is that these people are not acknowledged at all. Nobody (least of all the DEA) cares about the addiction in real people that these illegal places feed.

Lizrox

I would like to thank you sooooooo much for posting this. I AM in South Florida; thats where I got my pills... amphetamines, tramadol and Vicodin..

I am so glad they are cracking down FINALLY!!

Anna

Wow, Mark, that is shocking!

I hate that so-called doctors are getting rich selling illegal drugs. I sure hope they get a hefty jail sentence. And, it's definitely incentive for anyone using those 'pain clinics' to stay away.

recycle

Wow, I am so gullible. I have noticed an increasing number "Pain Clinics" cropping up around my town. Duh, I thought they legit. Sometimes it is good to look beyond personal struggles and see what a sick world we live in.

FT

Most of the pain doctors are probably too smart for the feds to arrest them, because they write "real" chart notes, and write "real" prescriptions for pain, and do "real" osteopathic or other treatments in conjunction with those things. Meanwhile, however, those of us who have gone to these guys know this:

1. There is no "real" exam going on. Yeah, they'd ask about how my knees felt and even offer extra treatment for about $150 extra for the ultrasound machine that does NOTHING for what ails ME. Oh yeah, the medical assistant would measure my knee flexion. But few of the docs ever "laid hands" on me at all. Visits were all under 5 minutes long, after waiting in the waiting room that stunk, had ratty carpet, thin walls, filthy parking lot with needles lying around, and no where to sit so all 20-30 of us would be standing and waiting for the entire time. Yeah, THAT made my knees hurt.

2. The prescriptions were the bottom line. The drug administration had been after one particular doc before and so he could only write for 2 weeks at a time. But that only was to his advantage so he could charge for twice as many office visits where he did nothing. How could he help it if his patients sold more than they used?

3. If you wanted MORE than pain advice, boy did you PAY. In fact, my "pain doc" was supposed to offer "all" family medicine services, but he would charge a FULL OFFICE CHARGE for EACH question: one for blood pressure, one for pain, one for headache, and on and on.

4. This particular doc had the feds come in and take away his license to prescribe controlled substances. NOT because he was violating FDA regs, but because the IRS found out he was hiding his huge piles of cash from selling us addicts our drugs, by hiding bundles of cash in dozens of different banks to evade paying taxes on them. He was arrested for like 2 DAYS. He is out now, and his office is still open. I don't know what he does in there, but the parking lot is no longer overflowing, so I hope he didn't get his drug license back.

5. I say all this, after I was myself quite guilty of availing myself of his "services". I went in there asking him to help me "taper". Yeah, right. He never did, and I never pushed it, because I wanted what he was selling.

Looking back, this was a VERY short time ago, and I find myself looking down on people who go to those places. Prescription drug abuse is rampant in this country. There are plenty of takers, and I was one. It's pretty sick. BTW, when he got shut down, it threw ALL of us into a PANIC who were "patients" there, because we had NO warning at all. I came in to my appointment the day after he got busted and was told I could come in and pay for my appointment to be told the story of, "sorry, go to the ER when you start having withdrawals." I really don't know what happened to all those other people, but I just found myself another drug doc. Geez. Where does it stop?

Akayla

Hang on...you look down on the people who go to those places? I feel like I may have misread that?? I know you and I would both have to look down on ourselves too for that to make sense. Surely you feel empathy- it would be impossible not to since you were a patient/victim yourself.

Although I've never been to a pill mill, I may as well be chained to the exam table of the doctor who's been prescribing me enough benzos to tranquilize an elephant for years and years and years. And if that ever fell through I would have been first in line at the pill mill!

We need to be vilifying these MD's- you know, the ones who took the Hippocratic oath to "do no harm." Not their clients. A heroin addict buys from a dealer, but a dealer hasn't taken a personal and professional oath offering them responsibility over the well being (or quite the opposite, in this case) of human beings like these doctors have. I have more respect for the smack dealer than these "doctors". At least the drug dealer is honest...

FT

You are RIGHT. I should have gone on to say, and I actually have said this on other threads -- after my own experience with addiction, I no longer view addicts as flawed humans. We are are essentially the same, with the same ability to fall into despair and lacking anything resembling tools to scrape our way back without some guidance.

That's where I get mad at some of the pill docs, who could be using their skills to teach and to heal. Not everybody who goes there wants that, but those who do should be listened to.

So, correction needed: When I "find myself looking down on people who go to those places," and I have to catch MYSELF, because I was one of those people and could be again if I don't take care of my recovery.

One thing, though, I do look down on people going to those places who use them to exploit other users. Around here, a lot of guys buy these drugs by legitimate prescription and then sell them for at least TEN TIMES what they paid for them. This would be another item of hot dispute, because these people are probably not just doing this to get the drug for themselves, but also to survive.

Akayla

Again, totally agreed. I look down on the inevitable exploitation of pill mills by dealers. But to play devil's advocate, they wouldn't have the opportunity to capitalize on other's addictions if the pill mills didn't exist. So at the end of the day, it's still the drug pushing MD's at fault. Not saying those folks wouldn't find their wares someplace else sans the convience of pill mills for illegal distribution, but it would be a lot more difficult.

All in all, they're bad news. I'm relieved to hear of the crackdown for the sake of all addicts- the gigantic dysfunctional family we all belong to. And as dysfunctional as it may be, we should thank our lucky stars for the good that can come of it...

thequest

It's takes two to tango. These pill mills or painkiller ABUSERS ruin it for the patients who truely are in constant pain from an actual physical problem. The wrongly/over prescribing docs are just as bad as some of junkies going there.

Everytime I hear about painkiller abuse or doctor shopping etc I keep thinking about how Rush Limbugh got caught for doctor shopping lol-shows how anyone can be affected. And doctor shopping is a problem onto itself because many docs who feel they are being shopped don't want to deal with you just for a second opinion simply because they don't want to go against their colleagues. I lived in parts of the country where all the docs seem to know each other and just to get a second opinion on dental was a bear, the third doc I went to offered opinion and treatment.

Anyway they need to make example out of ALL involved in these operations.

Timebuster

Don't put all the blame on the doctors, they don't force you to take the poison, it takes two to tangle.

TB

Dukefan

I don't know what would be the correct way for doctors to administer these drugs correctly. Some people are in pain, and others are abusing these drugs. I wish they could control it better.

meditation

I have noticed that people are robbing pharmacies at a high rate. It seems to have happened at the same time that the pill problems in Florida occurred.

Akayla

That is true. No one forces anyone to drug seek at a pill mill.

My main problem is that doctors are knowingly feeding off addicts that need help; people who are unwell and in danger, and they do it simply to turn a profit.

While it certainly takes two to tango, the doctors are assumably fully aware that an obvious drug seeking addict coming to a pill mill needs help and treatment, not more pills - not more pills that could potentially kill them.

I guess I seem to have this naive faith in medical professionals and the extreme power of an oath such as do no harm.

I agree all should be help accountable for their actions and addictions; it has taken me about 7 years from realizing I had a problem to even admitting it to another living soul, but eventually, I accepted personal accountability.

I still can't help but see the patients as a victim - of sorts - and while again, all should be held accountable, I still feel the pill mill doctors deserve the brunt of the responsibility.

FT

I agree with Akayla. To add a little to the history of why I believe that: about ten years ago, the medical profession was terrified to prescribe enough pain medication even to cancer patients, so patients were going undertreated and were suffering for it. Concerned families of patients pushed their local medical boards and the FDA to relax the regs so doctors could prescribe without fear.

After this occurred, all the well intentioned physicians were freer to prescribe, but so were the not-so-well-intentioned. The cause of the current drug abuse epidemic is multifactorial -- however, the growth of prescription drug abuse has been exponential since the regs were relaxed.

What we have now is a rebound effect. Now the docs are becoming terrified of prescribing again, so the only docs you can get to treat you for pain are the rogue docs out for a buck who have insulated themselves much like illegal drug lords do to protect the real guy sucking in the huge profits. Others have become greedy with how much money can be made doing this, and the system has become corrupt.

So, the current crop of drug docs in many, many states include a bunch of unscrupulous pill pushers, and it is hard to know the difference until you show up and check them out. Some are obvious, like the one I went to with a filthy waiting room, dangerous parking lot, ridiculously overbooked appointments, and no true physical assessments of most of the patients. I know that this particular guy USED to be a really good doc, a favorite in the community, and he got so greedy he got snapped up by the IRS.

End of rant.

Akayla

I would assume that people in honestly in chronic pain are under the care of a respected physician who is monitoring their dosage, who is ordering regular lab tests to spot potential liver damage and signs of abuse, etc. Since I am on such a high dosage of benzos, my doctor will only continue to prescribe if I have full blood work done every 6 months to check organ functioning, etc. If she doesn't have current lab results, she won't refill the prescription.

However, I also see how this is a slippery slope; a lot of people get addicted to pain meds after an injury who were never drug abusers before, so therein starts the evil cycle I suppose, landing the previous non-drug-user on the front steps of a pill mill.

I do wish they could control it better too, especially considering our tax dollars funding the damn DEA.

Timebuster

The majority of people have a chioce to be/stay on thses drugs.

Others will still need their highs. Now without a legal-ish way to get it, they will turn to stealing and buying smack from some hopper on a street corner.

Now is a good time to buy a pawn shop in Florida.

TB

thequest

I mostly agree but when a doc knows they don't have a legit problem and still write the scripts all bets are off . The article said they arrested 5 docs for writing script without legit problems. One doc wrote script for 387,000 pills/doses.