Source:
The New York TimesMIAMI — Drug Enforcement Administration agents and other law enforcement officials on Wednesday raided six South Florida pain clinics accused of illegally dispensing potent prescription drugs across the United States. Twenty-two people, including five doctors, were arrested on state and federal drug trafficking charges.
The one-year undercover inquiry, dubbed Operation Pill Nation, focused on storefront clinics in Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach Counties that the authorities say have become a national clearinghouse for illegal prescription drugs and highly addictive painkillers like oxycodone. Investigators described the operation as the federal government’s most aggressive effort to shut down the so-called pill mills they say have contributed to sharp increases in overdoses and addiction.
South Florida has long been a place where prescription drugs could be obtained easily and cheaply. In recent years, such pill mills have flourished in strip malls from Miami to Palm Beach Gardens, with the highest concentration of rogue clinics in Broward and Palm Beach Counties, officials said.
“This is a completely profit-driven operation that has no medical regard for anyone,” Mark R. Trouville, the special agent in charge of the Miami field office for the D.E.A., said in an interview. “These clinics have nothing to do with the welfare of the community.”
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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/24/us/24drugs.html
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