14 Florida Physicians Indicted in 'Pill Mill' Bust..

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Quote:August 30, 2011 — Fourteen physicians in southern Florida have been indicted as members of what one agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation calls "the nation's largest criminal organization" involved in illegally distributing opioid analgesics such as oxycodone.
Thirteen of the physicians, along with 19 other individuals, face federal charges ranging from conspiring to distribute a controlled substance to money laundering. The fourteenth physician, Gerald J. Klein, MD, was charged in a state court on August 18 with, among other things, first-degree murder in the death of a man who overdosed on a massive amount of hydromorphone and alprazolam that Dr. Klein had prescribed, according to authorities.
The 14 physicians worked in 4 pain management clinics that the federal indictment, which was made public August 23, depicts as set pieces in a gangster movie. Drug addicts and drug traffickers, most from out-of-state, packed the waiting rooms, and if they were not fighting each other, they were having drug-induced seizures. Security guards tried to maintain order. Opioid analgesics were dispensed and prescribed on an assembly line basis, and were paid for with cash and credit cards. Clinic employees hauled their money to the bank in large garbage bags. During a 2-year period, the clinics raked in more than $40 million from illegal drug sales, a federal grand jury stated.

Quote:The indictment notes that during the time frame of the alleged offenses (from 2006 to March 2010), Florida lacked a prescription drug monitoring program similar to the kind used in other states to detect drug abuse and diversion. Florida passed a law in 2009 authorizing such a program, but the DOJ states on its Web site that as of May 2011, the Florida program was not fully operational.

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