Pharmageddon: how America got hooked on killer prescription drugs

Really interesting take on the prescription drug trade in the US and how the absence of regulation in Florida specifically has resulted in a massive problem in the States:

The Kentucky number plate on Chad's pick-up truck, parked round the back of a doctor's clinic in Palm Beach, Florida, reveals that he has just driven a thousand miles, 16 hours overnight, to be here – and he's not come for the surfing. "It's my back," he says, rubbing his lower vertebrae. "I'm a builder. I fell off the roof and hurt my back." That's odd, as we have just watched him run out of the clinic and over to his truck without so much as a limp. He's clutching a prescription for 180 30mg doses of the painkiller oxycodone. Chad is one of thousands of "pillbillies" who descend on Florida every year from across the south and east coasts of America. Some come in trucks bearing telltale number plates from Kentucky, Georgia, Tennessee, even far-away Ohio. Others come by the busload on the apocryphally named Oxycodone Express. It's a lucrative trade. Chad tells us he has just paid $275 (£168) to the doctor inside the clinic, or pill mill, as it is pejoratively called. The doctor, who can see up to 100 people in a sitting, can make more than $25,000 in a day, cash in hand. For Chad the profits are handsome too. He will spend $720 at a pharmacy on his 180 pills, giving him a total outlay of about $1,000. Back in Kentucky he can sell each pill for $30, giving them a street value of $5,400 and Chad a clear profit of more than $4,000. If he goes to 10 pill mills in Palm Beach on this one trip he could multiply that windfall tenfold. But then there's the other cost of the oxycodone trade, a cost that is less often talked about, certainly not by Chad or his accommodating doctor. Every day in Florida seven people die having overdosed on prescription drugs – 2,531 died in 2009 alone. That statistic is replicated across the US, where almost 30,000 people died last year from abusing pharmaceutical pills.

The article goes on to mention that the Tea Party has refused to accommodate quantifiable measures of the amount of drugs being disbursed:

Even more astonishingly its recently elected governor, the Tea Party favourite Rick Scott, has blocked the introduction of a database on grounds of cost. That makes Perry see red. "Cost! For heaven's sake! What is the cost of a human life?" The police are even more baffled. They point out that Florida's lack of regulation has allowed the pill mills to flourish.

So can we conclude that even this ultra conservative party has been corrupted by Big Pharma's lobbying bucks? Is the US utterly controlled by lobby groups as it would appear to my perspective? What the hell is the White House doing declaring itself 'alarmed' and still taking no action?

I just cannot believe these potent damaging drugs are available to all.

I don't quite understand your conclusion that big pharma has corrupted the tea party. The story describes adults making poor choices which they should be free to make. Rather than implement further control and tracking technology, adults are being allowed to engage in a free market system. None have been compelled to do their part (use, sell, etc.), rather they are making the choice. Tracking people will not protect people. I agree the drugs are dangerous, but you can't legislate the right choices in life.

reply to post by spacedonk


The commercials on T.V. are just a riot if you ask me. They have it all, from making your toe nails shine to four hour erections that may send you right back to your physician. I'd be to busy calling all my friends and bragging about a four erection to even think about calling a doctor. Oh and four hours ain't squat in my book
Side effects may consist of paralysis, nausea, hallicinations,sideaches stomach aches, head aches, vomiting ,
coma, and if your real lucky the mercy of death. Stop taking if you experience thoughts of killing everyone you know including yourself.

The current tv documentary "vanguard" covered this topic back in 2009, the episode is called "the oxycontin express" they went undercover to the florida pain clinics to interview the drug addicts, show how easy the hillbilly heroin is to get and what appeared to be lots of young seemingly healthy people frequenting these places.

One of my best friends was on a date with an older guy in Chicago that same year the doc was made, he gave her some oxycontin when they were drinking, she OD and died. The man didn't have a prescription and didn't get charged with possession nor distributing it illegally, which I couldn't believe.

I don't think people realize how easy it is to make a mistake with these pills, take too much or mixing. Even legit users often die.

Thanks for bringing it to attention here about there being no database in florida, nothing being done about it, tea party & lobbyists... this has got me "seeing red" too.

I've been wanting to protest with a group or sign petitions against these drugs being so freely available and ruining lives all over the country, if anyone knows of a way to fight back please do share.

S&F OP

This stuff just makes me sick, I know it is a very important topic but I don't have the stomach for it. God bless those of you who do.

There is a saying to the effect that when the tide goes out, all the trash and pollution that had been concealed by the water is suddenly revealed, and the beach becomes a whole lot less savory. And as time goes, on, the tidal movements of history will eventually reveal the scope and scale of the deception, and it will be horrific. Or perhaps the full story will never be told. I am convinced it is a serious matter, however.The long-term penetration of water supply by chemicals of all sorts, including meds, is something people aren't ready to face yet but I sense its growing to be a real problem.

Ofcourse the white house or the FDA won;t take action, This could be probably more worse then the drug war. Well maybe not. we don't have Pharma cartel;s yet, or do we?? Just like a title from a rap song BIg pharma has "MONEY TO BLOW" and so buying lobbist is the same as buying up all the commerical adds on tellevision so you can;t watch a show without seeing an add for viagra or this or that.

Originally posted by BenIndaSun
I don't quite understand your conclusion that big pharma has corrupted the tea party. The story describes adults making poor choices which they should be free to make. Rather than implement further control and tracking technology, adults are being allowed to engage in a free market system. None have been compelled to do their part (use, sell, etc.), rather they are making the choice. Tracking people will not protect people. I agree the drugs are dangerous, but you can't legislate the right choices in life.

My conclusion is that the Tea Party has been corrupted because they will not support a policy of quantifying numbers of total pills disseminated to the public and where they end up geographically. In addition your assertion that this is a free market system is bunk because the drugs are available by limited supply geographically. Do you contest whether these drugs cause further expense to the public purse? Whether we define 'the choice' to take these drugs as acceptable or not should surely be defined by the wider ramifications to society and in particular the public purse. In this respect the drugs are quantifiably anti social. A database of disbursement would aid in multiple ways - future resource planning for addicts for example.

It is a fantastic utopian ideal to say it is an adult choice and the freedom of the individual is sacrosanct, but we do not live as individuals, we live as part of a bigger society. We pay in collectively and the state spends based on need, when an antisocial aspect of individuals needs means an increased spend then that behaviour needs to be examined to see if regulation/control is required. By not agreeing to the database, the Tea Party is either corrupted or complicit in stupidity. IMHO

Originally posted by spacedonk

Originally posted by BenIndaSun
I don't quite understand your conclusion that big pharma has corrupted the tea party. The story describes adults making poor choices which they should be free to make. Rather than implement further control and tracking technology, adults are being allowed to engage in a free market system. None have been compelled to do their part (use, sell, etc.), rather they are making the choice. Tracking people will not protect people. I agree the drugs are dangerous, but you can't legislate the right choices in life.

My conclusion is that the Tea Party has been corrupted because they will not support a policy of quantifying numbers of total pills disseminated to the public and where they end up geographically. In addition your assertion that this is a free market system is bunk because the drugs are available by limited supply geographically. Do you contest whether these drugs cause further expense to the public purse? Whether we define 'the choice' to take these drugs as acceptable or not should surely be defined by the wider ramifications to society and in particular the public purse. In this respect the drugs are quantifiably anti social. A database of disbursement would aid in multiple ways - future resource planning for addicts for example.

when an antisocial aspect of individuals needs means an increased spend then that behaviour needs to be examined to see if regulation/control is required. By not agreeing to the database, the Tea Party is either corrupted or complicit in stupidity. IMHO

You are correct, these drugs are only available to a select few in certain geographic areas, therefore it is not completely free. Of course, without the DEA, FDA, and whatever other government agencies regulate prescription drugs, it would be completely free.

I do not define the choice as acceptable or unacceptable for others, but for myself, and my recommendation to anyone would be to not take addictive drugs. It's not about its acceptability, not taking oxycontin is the best choice I can make, with or without government regulations. As said, it's all about freedom.

Do you contest whether these drugs cause further expense to the public purse?

Yes I do. If there were no public purse, which I argue there should not be, whether or not some people in Florida and Kentucky took opioids would have no effect on my day to day life.

It is a fantastic utopian ideal to say it is an adult choice and the freedom of the individual is sacrosanct, but we do not live as individuals, we live as part of a bigger society. We pay in collectively and the state spends based on need,

I think it is corrupt that we take money from everyone and pay out based on "need". If there were not corrupt welfare programs supporting the indigent in our "society", it wouldn't cost me anything. I would just assume not pay for their medical bills or for another program to track their habit. Hell, I don't even want to pay to arrest the doctors and illegal sellers involved. You should check your premises that we live not as individuals, but as part of a bigger society.

Interesting? I would say that the article linked is nothing more than an insulting one-sided propaganda piece, worthy of the trash bin and written by someone of equal worth, Ed Pilkington.

Not only is the story laughable, it takes the basic reader for a naive simpleton. Mr. Pilkington seems better suited to the National Enquirer for his child minded gossip articles, than any professional media outlet.

The War on Drugs is the first War on Terror.... both are ultimate strawman, successfully employed to circumvent or counter Constitutional freedoms and to ensure a nearly limitless flow of money to the corrupt corporate/government elites.