Addictions Treatment Blog

Florida may be home to many wonderful things, but it is also a haven for prescription drug addicts. There is an overabundance of pain clinics where people, many from out of state, are able to walk in with a 'condition' and walk out with more than 200 pills of heavily addictive drugs such as prescription painkillers such as Oxycontin or Vicodin.

Florida's Manitee County is adopting strict laws as an emergency action to try and regulate, limit and ultimately get rid of these types of pill mills. Prescription drug addiction has led many people to seek addiction treatment centers in Florida, while thousands of others don't survive. Over 200 drug overdose deaths were reported for 2009 just between Manatee and Pinellas Counties alone, and the numbers are sure to be higher this year.

It is horribly ironic that we will spend millions of dollars fighting supply reduction in other countries while our own government, pharmaceutical industry and thousands of doctors are actually creating more addicts and deaths within our own borders. It's sickening that these doctors are allowed to practice, that the clinics are allowed to have their own drug-dispensing pharmacies, and that there aren't more strict laws in place to regulate these places.