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There are more of these pain clinics here in Broward County than there are McDonald's restaurants: 115 so-called pill mills, vs. about 70 of the burger franchises. And that profusion contributes to one big problem: there is no tracking system to prevent patients from getting multiple pill prescriptions at once and immediately, because the clinics hand out the pills rather than making people go to a pharmacy. The business card of the Broward Pain Clinic announces, "Dispensing on Site!" - a service that's also trumpeted by dozens of other clinics. Because of that, cocaine is no longer king...
...mills, up from 66 just 14 months before. This has contributed to tourism - pill-shopping trips to the Sunshine State from Tennessee and Kentucky, where authorities have cracked down hard on similar clinics, seem to be as common as Disney vacations nowadays. In the parking lot of the Broward Pain Clinic, there are just as many license plates from Ohio, Tennessee and Kentucky as there are from Florida...
...last figure is equivalent to about 10 reported deaths a day. That's more than the number of fatalities from street drugs like cocaine and heroin. It doesn't help that in Florida, you don't need to be a doctor to run a pain-management clinic, Lamberti says. "You need a background check to get a liquor license - you can't be a convicted felon and open up a bar - but you can be a convicted felon and open up a pain clinic...
...clinics continue their march northward. The latest front line is Palm Beach County, just north of Broward County. That county had 372 suspected overdose deaths from legal pain pills in 2009, up from 248 in 2005, according to published reports. Alarmed by the spread of the clinics, Palm Beach County commissioners just passed a moratorium to keep new clinics from opening while officials try to hammer out a solution. Other local governments are passing similar moratoriums. A commissioner in one city, Delray Beach, wants to require patients to be fingerprinted when they pick up their pills, for better monitoring...
...clinics are coming under more fire than ever. Florida legislators have already passed a law that is supposed to create a database to track pain-pill purchases - as 38 other states already have. And there's more legislation in the pipeline this year, including laws that would make it illegal for anyone other than a doctor in good standing to run one of the clinics, ban advertising by the clinics and limit how much pain medicine can be dispensed at one time...