Pain clinics: Florida No. 1 in oxycodone – by far - latimes.com

Florida distributed more than a half-billion doses of the pain drug oxycodone in 2009, twice as many as the next nearest state and up sharply from the previous year, newly obtained federal figures show.

Rogue pain clinics were booming that year in South Florida, developing into the industry that is now the top supplier of narcotic pills — especially oxycodone — to drug dealers and addicts in the Southeast. The trade has spread to Central Florida and elsewhere.

"[The] increase in distribution of oxycodone in Florida is what we would expect to see occur with the rise in the illegal pill mill business," said Mark R. Trouville, special agent in charge for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in South Florida. The figures were developed by the DEA and are the latest available.

The number of oxycodone doses distributed in Florida jumped 25 percent in 2009 to 523 million, up 100 million from 2008. By comparison, the No. 2 state for the drug was Pennsylvania at 267 million pills; the national supply rose 11 percent that year.

"These pill mills were making a mint, and then you saw an exponential increase in the number of people getting into it … especially among the criminal element," said Bruce Grant, Florida's former drug czar.

via latimes.com

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