what channel is this on? i'd love to watch it.

i've seen a few tv documentaries about this, and it is NUTS.
they are literally set up in strip malls, with bright, neon signs
that say P A I N C L I N I C ... it's unbelievable.

the big thing then, after filling the rx's, is driving them down
whatever major highway is into other major parts into the
deep south without getting pulled over - or at least that's what
one of the shows that i watched concentrated on. there are
people who literally just drive back and forth and back and
forth and sell these drugs for a living. it's so sad ...

but as sad as the fact that i have to pee into a cup every
so many months just to be sure i'm not abusing my meds
- which i'm not - while these guys are practically drinking
theirs with dinner.

aye, aye, aye.
xoxo, misa

YES... exactly misa... Grrrr --- yeah drinking them every friken meal!

I could not believe it! Oh yeah you are right, they talked about how people were going down to Florida to pick up as much as they could - drive back to West Virgina (and some neighboring states) and either sell them or keep them to continue with their addiction.

They said its so much easier to get huge amounts of pills because Florida has no "tracking system" (which I cannot believe) in place to discourage people from "Dr. shopping" ( oh how I hate that term) so they are able to go from Dr. to Dr. without being detected and get multiple scripts etc...etc...Not only that, but there is so much money involved that these "Pain Management clinics" will prescribe to almost anyone especially if they come in with an MRI sheet ( just for some kind of record - it doesnt even need to say too much regarding pain) and away they go... script in hand with a "see ya next month !" Some of them even dispense meds IN THE CLINIC! WTF!? Talk about a conflict of interest!
They had a small discreet camera recording the inside and outside of the office. There were people waiting for HOURS to be seen- the waiting room was completely full - people crowded together. It was ridiculous!

I wonder if our Floridian friends that need REAL PAIN MANAGEMENT have an even harder time due to all of this Sh%#!

I have heard too many times how this trickles down negatively to people- even my Dr. is "afraid of the DEA" so much... that it affects how he prescribes for HIS patients!

Saw a piece on Broward County and how people are driving fron Kentucky to get meds.

Yes, this is why we are under attack.

OMG!

I am actually dumbstruck by this and had never heard of such a thing.

I am desperately trying to get something a little stronger, XR type without ibuprofen/aspirin in it that is a step up from Hydrocodone that I have been taking for 21 years! I think I have proven my ability to handle my meds!!

All I had to do was plan a trip to FL ...???? Hey, I could visit dearest Tipper on the trip, make a double shot out of it!!!

Seriously though...I am so flipping angry about this. On top of which, who is to say you are getting real, labratory medications and not some junk that was cooked up or altered by some pimple faced college chemists with no sex life and dreams as deep as a kiddy pool?

And all I can get is Tramadol! Thanks alot %&*#$% drug abusers and the ones that sell them!

i get nothing . Where bieng treated like drug abusers, there creating them . It well cost persons in real pain . this makes me mad . hugs minnie

Guys,

That was an old show!!! Yes, it used to be like that in Broward County, Florida, I live here! The law changed (THANK GOD!!!) on January 1st, 2011!
Now, all of those clinics are close! The DEA and Broward Sherrif office took care of that! The few pain management Doctor's that we have in our County, are legit, my Doctor is one of them!
With the new law you have to have a Florida ID to get narcotic medications, ALL Doctor's that practice pain management, have to have a medication agreement with their clients, and they have to do an UA monthly! That is what I do ! :-)
With the new law, Doctor's can not give more than 28 days of narcotics to a patient, that is what I do also. :-)
Now, if you need narcotic medications, you need to have an MRI or CT on file that is not older than a year, and the pain management Doctor's that still prescribe narcotics, get every couple of months a visit from the DEA, just to make sure that everything is the way that is supposed to be! YEAY!!!!!

So those old shows about Broward County are telling the story of how "IT USED TO BE", NOT WHAT IT IS NOW, thanks to ourn Legislators! No more Kentucky, Alabama, or Georgia people here! If you need opiods, you need to have a legitimate reason to get them prescribe, Hurray!!!!

Tipper

Miami-Dade county here! Like Tipper said, the laws changed after the 1st of the year down here. It was crazy, pain clinics where giving narcotics out like candy with little control. That spigot has been plugged!

My GP has to physically see me to prescribe pain meds, and there has to be medical proof on record such that validates I do in fact need them, and like Tipper said (though I was told 30 days of which mine is) they can't have "refills" anymore on opiates or narcotics.

Pain Clinic changes: those that were allowed to stay open. Can only prescribe to Florida residents, and 3 days max supply! They must then follow up with their doctor, and if they don't, they are flagged such that they have to be fully examined again to get pain medications.

Other states are now looking at how Florida went after pain clinics and too the law changes as a model for their possible changes. :)

OOPSIE! Sorry people... I didnt know the show was so old. I should have looked for a date or something... duh...

Thats great that they have fixed this problem!

LOL...don't worry about it LFH! This was great. I had never, ever heard of such a thing and I was so piqued by it, I was researching like a fool! That gave me ample opportunity to try and ignore my pain...so...you did a good thing!

I was actually laughing..the next thing they would have had would be drive thru's....

Speaker box: Welcome to Pill Palace and Burger Barn. Go ahead and place your order whenever you're ready.

Drive up: Uhhhhh...can you give me a minute?

Speaker box: Go ahead when you're ready

Drive up: Uhhhh, Yeah...I'd like a #3 with pickles and a small fry?

Speaker box: Anything else?

Drive up: Uhhh, Yeah...can I also have a milkshake? Codene Berry please. Oh! and can you put a 20 pack of Dilauded in the bag?

Speaker box: Is that all?

Drive up: Uhhh, Yeah, thanks

Speaker box: Uh, that'll be 46.95 at the first window, please pull forward.


HEHEHEHHE...

How can this possibly be a surprise, especially in Broward County? Rush Limbaugh had this down to a science and he wasn't arrested until 2006 after a 3.5 year investigation (so the state and Broward County knew this had been going on for decades!)! Despite his overt addiction and bonafide doctor shopping to get his ever expanding fix of medication (not for pain, but to avoid tapering off the medication appropriately when he no longer needed it), Rush literally doctor shopped, lying about why he needed medication. But all he was charged with was a single count of fraud to conceal information to obtain a prescription (aka prescription fraud) and was out on $3000 bail within an hour of turning himself in (aw, the poor guy; and he did all of this while verbally lambasting everyone who ever needed pain medications, regardless of how bonafide their reason was...never mind he was a full blown addict at the same time, the blowhard hippocrite!).

Limbaught got his medications from a plethora of doctors in Broward County, despite not living there, and no one questioned him, so why would they question anyone else? Drugs are money! Pay cash and they'll write you a script. Fake pain and they'll write for more. Send your appointed representative, heck, they'll still write you a script! This has always been against the federal laws, but apparently Florida didn't give a damn.

As for punishment, all Limbaugh has to do was stay "clean" for 18 months and not break any laws and the charges would be cleared. Now how's that for a deal!!

So Broward County was obviously THE place to go for drugs...and non-exisitent penalties. And despite protestations to the contrary, it probably still is, just behind closed doors and under the counter...the market is undoubtedly still there, just went underground, so SuperDuck can't get her Codeine Berry Shake at the "Drugs and Burgers" drive through; now you need to know the secret password. It's pretty much the same concept as the concept as the drive-through liquor stores in many states and counties in parts of the US...and then they wonder why they have outrageous DUI rates?!

No, it's not fair on the bonafide pain patients; it never will be. But the rich and the wicked will always get their way in life and those who follow the rules will be the ones who get penalized.

BTW, on hydrocodone, right now there is NO option without acetaminophen. But due to the latest FDA ruling about the maximum allowable dose of acetaminophen be 325 mg in all prescription medications only (no more 500 or 650 acetaminophen dosings if/when the ruling ever kicks in), there is hope that hydrocodone will be available in the not so distant future in a formulation without acetaminophen. It's only taken decades and untold numbers of overdoses, deaths and acute liver failures due to acetaminophen overdoses for these changes to be made!

BTW, please, place blame for inadequate pain relief where it belongs, on THE DOCTORS, not the DEA. Your doctors are the ones who make up excuses for not prescribing adequate pain relief. The DEA does not tell doctors how to practice medicine, does not require anyone to turn in copies of all prescriptions written every month or do any other such nonsense. They leave good doctors who have good relationships with their patients and document the need for pain medication alone to do their job. So any doctor who uses the DEA as an excuse is making excuses for not treating their patients according to the Hippocratic Oath but according to their wallets and to CYA (cover their a$$)! The DEA has always required this process under their scheduled medication prescribing instructions (although as an established patient a doctor can provide up to three 30-day prescriptions for schedule II medications, written to be filled no earlier than 30 days after the last one or done electronically the same way, so those monthly appointments are NOT needed unless your state has mandated more stringent requirements or the doctor just wants to make more money...usually the latter is the case!). Those have ALWAYS been the federal rules; the state of Florida just didn't care until recently and didn't follow federal laws (and invariably there will always be clinics and doctors who don't...regardless of the state).

Okay, rant over. I wish you all the very best! :)

yes i have seen it and your right .NOW... this is what is SCREWING patients that NEED THIS MEDICATION! it makes me mad if people that live in ky will drive to Florida get the meds and come back and sell them and they are only making it hard on us chronic pain suffers finding doctors to listen to us

SO GLAD superduck ! Distraction is such a good thing :)

Ummm yeah, LOL... I can see it too... Can I have a quarter pound of Oxy and one of those grab bags for 50? Boy its fun to get a bag of random pills and be surprised by all the pretty colors, shapes and sizes!

pkd ~ well said about PMDs blaming the dea. mine has *never* used them as an excuse, but has explained to me what her legal limits are (same as you just explained, here in IL). you would think that helping me find a way to live the most pain-free life is her main motivation for getting out of bed every day ... she is truly wonderful. she asks that i come in once every three months; if i have a problem, of course, i can come in before that time is up.

there TRULY are some wonderful PMDs out there - thank GOD, right?

icp ~ you're correct in that *selling* the medication is illegal and doesn't help those of us with legitemate pain who need treatment from
PMDs. simply seeing those doctors, doctor shopping, and filling those prescriptions - those things were not illegal. and if the patient was keeping the medications for themselves only, then they were doing nothing wrong according to FL law. sad, but true.

with all due respect, your past behavior is what really hurts pain patients. just think: at every PMD's office where a patient breaks a contract, be it by getting pills somewhere else, using their pills too quickly and needing more - whatever the situation - one the PMD is forced to let that patient go, they then have that much less 'faith' in patients, i would imagine. less patience, less willingness to believe crazy stories, when they might absolutely be true, less likely to prescribe a stronger medication for someone who really needs it because they've been 'duped' before. in my opinion, that must bring PMDs down the most: up-close, personal relationships with their patients ending in dissapointment.

llady ~ thank you so much for telling us about this! i found another showing of it and dvr'd it as soon as i read your post, and i couldn't believe all of the statistics. eleven people dying a day! or the man who lost his brother *and* his wife, who said he was taking THIRTY thirty mg oxys a day ... *on top* of a ton of xanax. holy mother, how was he alive? i don't get it. it's a sad life. i watched it once, and then again with my hubby, and he was as blown away as i was. i knew it was bad there - i had seen one documentary about it before - but you forget all the actual stats and everything, you know?

also, even though they were putting the tracking system in, i doubt it's in half of those so-called 'pain clinics' yet. that was only a state measure being passed, and those things take SO much time. i'm sure it's still going on like nobody's business. or that many people are staying with ONE doctor, who's giving them a million pills. there's always a way to beat the system, and people always find it, unfortunately.

xoxo, misa

Misa,
My jaw hit the ground when I watched the part about his brother and then HIS WIFE! I mean that is unbelievable! I cant imagine a mom having to basically baby-sit her son ( at what-- 27 yrs old ) afraid every single day that she will find him dead. What a selfish ass! He knows that he can manipulate and get his way about everything because he knows... that she cant take the heart- break of another death in the family! P.S. I guess they have "Xanax BARS" "BARS" LOL !?? They looked long and shaped a little like "PEZ" candies --all put together -- Yup, looks like they DO eat them like candy! HA HA and I am pretty sure they arent the .25 mgs xanax ( dosage) His poor mum...