Assignment 6

The documentary “OxyContin Express” studies the mass distribution of prescription pills by doctors from pain clinics in South Florida, predominantly in Broward County around Ft. Lauderdale.  These doctors prescribe OxyContin five times more than the national average.  Because this distribution is legal in Florida, unlike in other states, this opens the opportunity up for a major drug trade between Florida and the rest of the US.  As the problem becomes more and more widespread, authorities have been scrambling to try to contain it.

Personally, I am not very happy that South Florida is known as the pill popper’s paradise.  I am from this part of South Florida, and I am proud of where I grew up.  I am sad and slightly ashamed that my hometown is making such a great contribution to destroying peoples’ lives everyday.  However, somehow, I never knew that this prescription drug situation was a problem.  I never thought twice about seeing pain clinics, and never knew that a lot of these clinics were in business to make money by distributing drugs to addicts.  I’m truly disgusted that doctors would be willing to forget their pledge to help society and exploit the addictions of patients just to make money.  

I think that in order to stop the pill pipeline that stems from Ft. Lauderdale and Appalachia, the problem must be attacked at its source.  I think the source of the problem is that Florida doesn’t have the same laws as other states about prescription drugs.  Because the laws in Florida are much less constrictive, people from all over the country come to Florida to easily get hundreds or thousands of pills.  So, to stop this “pill pipeline,” I think that we should enact all of that same laws that other states have to make it harder to get large amounts of these prescription drugs.  One of these laws would create a prescription drug database, which would track who buys an amount of drugs prescribed from what doctor in order to prevent “doctor shopping,” in which addicts get different prescriptions from many different doctors to get a huge amount of drugs.  If it is noticed that either a patient or doctor are acting suspiciously, an investigation should occur.  On-site pharmacies should also be made illegal, to remove the monetary incentive for pain clinics to prescribe medication.  It should be required to make all drug transactions with some sort of paper trail, to monitor how much of each drug a person is buying.  If these standards are put in place and rival the codes of other states, the addicts would have no reason to come to Florida to pills, thus killing the “pill pipeline.”

There are many ways that this relates to the class.  First of all, use of the prescription drugs by addicts is illegal recreational use of a Schedule II drug.  Because the drugs can be used for a medical purpose, they are Schedule II and not I, but they can still be very dangerous and deaths from overdose have become quite common.  The ease through which addicts can get drugs in South Florida has created a bit of a culture both in Florida and elsewhere.  The illegal drug trade in Florida has created an environment in which the drug trade thrives.  The pain clinics has sprouted all around Florida, and addicts feel free to doctor shop and get as many pills as they want.  When people go up north to areas like Appalachia after buying the drug in Florida, another culture is created.  Illegal drug trade blooms, creating a problem for both addicts and police alike.  Apparently nearly no family goes untouched from this addiction, and law enforcement officers have a very hard time containing the trade for this illegal drug.

In conclusion, I think that it is horrible that this seemingly unethical practice of selling prescription drugs to addicts is so common in South Florida.  I think that state laws should be made to imitate those of other states, so that people do not come down to buy the drugs so easily.  I think that this is a very sad situation that destroys lives all over the country, and I hope that an effective solution is eventually created.