Florida’s Prescription Drug Epidemic

by AdamS on July 23, 2012

According to statistics published by the Federal Drug Enforcement Agency, Florida is home to 49 of the nation’s top 50 oxycodone prescribers.  Pain clinics in Florida have become hubs for prescription drug traffickers from all over the nation to come and buy thousands of pills.  Florida drug rehab centers are also targets for the traffickers because most residential rehab facilities keep large quantities of prescription pills on hand in order to taper off the dosages for the people who have already become addicted to the pain killers.  Check out https://www.thewatershed.com/resource/residential-rehab-center/ for more info on rehab centers.
 

Florida- The Oxycodone Highway

Doctors in Florida are handing out prescriptions for oxycodone and other painkillers at a rate that is 10 times greater than that of every single other state combined.  That has caused people from all over the country to travel to Florida to get prescriptions of these addicting pills.  Pain clinics in Florida are now often referred to as pill mills by police because they basically just hand out prescriptions of the drugs for their own profit.  Traffickers of oxycodone come from all over the country, but a majority of them are all from the Appalachian areas like Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas.  These dealers drive down to Florida for one or two days and then leave the state with thousands of pills that they can resell in their own neighborhoods for a large profit.

No Regulations

The main reason that Florida is accountable for the vast majority of these prescriptions is that there is currently no system to monitor who is getting these drug prescriptions.  Almost all other states have a system set up to monitor who is getting prescribed pain medication and how often.  That means that in Florida, drug traffickers can go from clinic to clinic with the same symptoms and receive multiple prescriptions a day.  Until a system is put into place, this will continue to be a major problem in Florida.

Prescription Drug Related Deaths

In Florida alone, over seven people die each day from prescription drug related incidents.  Countless others are suffering from addiction.  These pain killers are derived from opium and are extremely addicting and nearly as deadly as heroin.  The only difference is that it’s a lot less common for a doctor to prescribe heroin.  The drugs affect the body’s central nervous system and cause the respiratory system to slow down and eventually stop if taken in big enough doses.

Legislation

Even though a bill was passed last session to implement a monitoring system on prescription pain killers, there was no money provided to start the system.  The Governor has also openly called the program a waste of money.  Until doctors in Florida are held accountable for basically selling drugs for personal profit, there will always be a huge drug industry in Florida.

Florida drug rehab centers and other residential rehab facilities will continue to fill up with more and more drug addicts until this is stopped.  The state cannot afford to keep up this horrible trend.  Prescription painkillers like oxycodone are deadly when abused the way that Florida allows them to be. Check outhttps://www.thewatershed.com/florida-fl-drug-rehab/  for more information on Florida drug rehab programs.

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