After Rx Crackdown in Florida, 'Pill Mills' Migrate North to Georgia
December 26, 2012 09:15:34 am
Florida's crackdown on 'pill mills" has pushed many of the operators across the border in Georgia. The Wall Street Journal cites Jeffrey Gonzalez, a failed car dealer who moved to an Atlanta suburb, hired two physicians through Craigslist and opened a clinic prescribing opioid painkillers. Gonzalez said he "The laws are minimal at best," Gonzalez said of Georgia. "We had a green light from every agency that we spoke to."
The rapid cross-border shift reflects how quickly operators can migrate when the business environment sours—and why it is difficult to fight the prescription-drug epidemic on a national scale. Today Georgia is home to more than 125 clinics, up from fewer than 10 in 2010. Per capita prescription sales of oxycodone tripled between 2000 and 2010. Other states could be caught off guard in the coming years, says Sam Olens, Georgia's attorney general. "Once the pill mills leave Georgia, they'll simply go north of us," says Olens, looking for other states with looser regulations.
Posted by Anna
Thursday, January 03, 2013 11:22
. Like they didn’t ram through Alito and Roberts.Jeff Friedman at 6:22pm July 13The Democrats just don’t get it. Every time a Republican President picks a Supreme Court jtciuse, they go to the far right. When it’s time for a Democratic president to have his turn, he invariably picks a centrist like Judge Sotomayor. This in a nutshell is why we have such a right wing extremist court that issues monstrous decisions like the Read MoreLily Ledbetter case. President Obama does us a major disfavor by nominating the moderate to conservative Judge Sotomayor. What we need is a liberal firebrand like Judge Diane Wood to bring the court back toward the center. Retiring Justice Souter is decidedly more liberal than Judge Sotomayor.Judith Steinhart at 1:49pm July 13Would they ever say to a man anything about having a meltdown????Kristina Wilfore at 12:00pm July 13what did you think of the WA Post piece? The way they talked about her mentors made me uncomfortable, oddly critical and overall felt sexist.