Buyers flock to Florida 'pill mills'

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla., April 5 (UPI) -- Fast growing South Florida pain clinics are actually "pill mills" where doctors sell narcotics such as OxyContin to 65 patients per day or more, police say.

Broward County alone has 89 pain clinics, while the number of the clinics in South Florida -- many located in strip malls and office parks -- has risen from 60 to 150 in the past year, the Miami Herald reported Sunday.

The sale of OxyContin and other pain-relieving narcotics to walk-in customers attracts thousands of buyers from Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia, Massachusetts and other states -- with some buyers sometimes camping outside the clinics overnight, Hollywood, Fla., Police Capt. Allen Siegel, director of a South Broward narcotics task force, told the newspaper.

Police blame a jump in the deaths from prescription pain medication on the clinics, which, they say, flourish because of lax Florida laws allowing clinics to have in-house pharmacies that sell drugs straight to clients walking in off the street, the Herald said.

"This medicine is about profit-making," said Mark Trouville, special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration's Miami office. "I hate to call them doctors. These people are just out to make money."