If you’re living in Florida and have a friend or family member with a prescription drug addiction or abuse problem – even if they got the pills from a doctor – it’s no surprise to us. It would be difficult to find an addiction treatment center that is not currently helping a fairly large number of people who are trying to get off them.

Florida has been called ‘the pill state’ for a few years now. Recently it was reported that Broward County, home to Fort Lauderdale, has so many pain clinics popping up that it’s now being called the painkiller capital of the United States. The population is about 1.8 million and the pain clinics alone prescribed about 6.5 million painkillers in the last half of 2008.

Florida doesn’t have a prescription drug monitoring program so no one is really watching over what’s happening to these patients other than the doctors at the pain clinics and, since their specialty is managing pain – i.e. controlling the symptoms with drugs instead of offering treatment that could get rid of the underlying problem - depending on them to make sure the patient isn’t in trouble is a little like having Cinderella made a ward of her wicked stepmother.

And the residents of the county – as well as thousands of people who come from out of state to get painkillers, some even camping outside the doors of the county’s 85 pain clinics waiting for them to open – are paying for it. The coroner says deaths from prescription drug overdose have increased by 107% in the last two years and called the situation an epidemic of drug abuse. God only knows how many people are addicted – it’s hard to escape addiction with painkillers so the numbers have got to be big.

The brisk business of painkillers in Broward County is also servicing other states. The total number of oxycodone pills handed out by just 45 doctors – who the DEA says they ‘hate’ to call doctors because they’re just after the money – handed out 9 million oxycodone pills (they could be OxyContin, vicodin, percocet, and so on) in the last six months of 2008.

If you have a friend or family member who is in pain, do yourself and them a favor and find an alternative treatment. Prescription painkillers are highly addictive and getting them off the pills once they’ve started is tough. If they’re already using them, find an addiction treatment center that can help them. And remember one thing – if they say they can’t stop because they’re still in pain it’s possible that the painkillers themselves are causing it. Extended use of painkillers can do that.

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In last night’s press conference, Obama talked quite a bit about health care. I wonder if he knew Oklahoma’s funding was cut for their prescription drug monitoring program? I also wonder if he knows about the nation-wide problem with prescription drug addiction or the number of people dying from prescription drug overdoses. I doubt he’s had the chance to dig that deeply into things yet – having only been in office for 63 days with some pretty serious problems to address.

Obama wants higher quality health care at a lower cost. Cutting prescription drug monitoring funding is a move in the wrong direction. Not only does the monitoring stop people from doctor shopping – which allows them to get the drugs they need to feed their own habit AND fuels the illegal trade in prescription drugs that is driving people into an addiction treatment center to address their addiction – it can also prevent people from getting the wrong medication and being prescribed drugs that are harmful when taken with other drugs they’ve also been prescribed.

Florida is a perfect example of what lack of a prescription drug monitoring program can do. It’s overdose deaths have surpassed other high cause-of-death categories combined – and we’re talking about overdosing on prescription drugs, not street drugs.

You can make sure Obama’s aware of this problem. Millions of families across the country have been damaged by prescription drug addiction, and prescription drug errors. Many have lost their loved ones because of this problem. Go to whitehouse.gov and write to him – let him know there’s a problem. He’ll be interested in solving it – it directly aligns with solving our health care problems. 

look at Florida – the nation’s pill state – no monitoring plan – anyone can get anything and the overdose deaths are skyrocketing, prescription drugs are killing more people than other high cause of death categories combined), and helps prevent people from getting the wrong medication or being prescribed drugs that will hurt them if they take them with the other drugs they’ve also been prescribed.

A waste of money, and lives. 

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Lee County, home to nearly 60 cities and in Southwest Florida, just opened it’s first new alcohol and drug detox center in 50 years. I would hope there are some good addiction treatment centers available for follow up - detox is not enough for most addicts or alcoholics. That gets them dried up, but being able to stay clean will depend on the addiction treatment they get afterwards. There’s a lot of work to do after the detox period.

What’s amazing about this is that we spend $69 billion a year on the war on drugs but haven’t put a new detox center in this county for 50 years! How can that be? Setting up detox centers and addiction treatment centers should be our first priority if we want to handle the drug problem.

Instead, this County’s detox facilities have actually lost ground over the last 20 years. There were only enough facilities to treat 28 people 20 years ago, and even though the number of people likely to need help has tripled, the number of people there were facilities to treat went down to 25.

The new facility only has 25 beds – there were 46 waiting in line before the doors even opened.

If you’re having trouble getting into detox, or an addiction treatment center for follow up, give us a call. We’ll help you find one in your area.

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