I have been following the 'pill mill' articles with much interest over the last few weeks. The thing I do not understand is that all we read about are deaths and over-prescription. No one ever mentions the thousands of us who now have this medication, and it has been a godsend.

We - most of us - have documented medical conditions that are extremely painful. Yet bring a prescription for this medication (written by a Florida M.D.) to almost any pharmacy, and they treat you like a drug addict.

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Gov. Rick Scott has wisely retreated from his uninformed attempt to kill a statewide prescription drug database. After months of opposition, his Department of Health has signaled it will follow the law and work with a chosen vendor to build the database for certain powerful narcotics. That is an important step toward ending Florida's reputation as the premier destination for narcotic tourism.

As soon as midsummer, Florida should join 34 other states that already have databases for drugs such as oxycodone and Xanax. The databases track a prescription's author, dispenser and recipient to try to thwart patients who obtain multiple prescriptions for drugs that can then be sold illegally. Law enforcement officers will have access to the information only if they already have a person under investigation.

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Florida is one of many states grappling with overcrowded prisons. States facing budget shortfalls are pursuing alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent drug offenders. A study by the RAND Corp. found that every additional dollar invested in substance abuse treatment saves taxpayers $7.48 in societal costs.

Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders along side hardened criminals is the equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education in antisocial behavior.

It's time to declare peace in the failed drug war and begin treating all substance abuse, legal or otherwise, as the public health problem it is.

Robert Sharpe, policy analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Arlington, Va.

[end]

It is disheartening to see presumably serious politicians such as Attorney General Pam Bondi and state Sen. Mike Fasano argue without nuance and without specifics that a prescription drug database represents a meaningful solution to a serious issue.

In the early days of the computer age, coders created one of the first catchphrases of the cyber era -- "garbage in, garbage out." Without necessary controls over what goes into a database that by its very nature invades the privacy of those whose personal information is included, it is almost certain that the database will be misused.

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Who is going to pay for government employees and welfare recipients to be drug tested? We, the taxpayers.

Who owns an interest in a drug-testing facility by virtue of his wife? Rick Scott.

Who conveyed a $62 million ownership interest in an urgent-care chain to his wife? Scott.

Who is using the hard-earned money of Florida taxpayers as a slush fund to increase his net worth? Scott.

Lynn Cannella, Tampa

[end]

Ed Buss has been on the job for less than two months, but Florida's new secretary of the Department of Corrections is off to a promising start. He is not interested in the tough-on-crime platitudes that have dominated state lawmaking for years. As the former head of the Indiana prison system, Buss knows that reducing a large prison population means keeping low-risk offenders out of prison and helping them to stay out. He would accomplish this by embracing progressive approaches to corrections reform such as ending some mandatory minimum sentencing. Whether Buss can get his agenda through the Legislature and the corrections officers union remains to be seen. Some of his ideas take the wrong direction, but many are worth pursuing.

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I do not understand why everyone is making such a big deal over drug testing. In the last 15 years I have had three jobs, and each one of them required I take a drug test before being employed. None of them put me in charge of someone's safety, and only one of them was dealA-ing with critical financial information of clients of the business.

Why are government employees being put up as 'above' us regular employees when in fact they should be held to higher standards because it is our tax dollars paying their salary?

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If you have a $62 million investment, representing the biggest single chunk of your $218 million in wealth, and you put it in a trust under your wife's name, does that mean you're no longer involved in the company?

Florida Gov. Rick Scott says it does.

Scott has aggressively pursued policies like testing state workers and welfare recipients for drugs, switching Medicaid patients to private HMOs and shrinking public health clinics. All these changes could benefit that $62 million investment, but Scott sees no legal conflict between his public role and private investments.

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But Supporters of a Prescription Monitoring Database Scoff At His Alternative Approach

TALLAHASSEE -- Facing criticism for not supporting a database that many believe would help combat the state's prescription drug epidemic, Gov. Rick Scott on Monday launched his own initiative to fight the problem.

At a news conference where he was flanked by Attorney General Pam Bondi and a handful of law enforcement officers, Scott announced a statewide drug trafficking "strike force."

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Gerald Bailey will lead the effort, coordinating with local law enforcement agencies.

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What is the problem of asking those whose salaries we pay through our taxes to submit to a drug test? Do we have to pay for their drug habits? Can we trust those who are responsible for our state's business if they are opposed to drug testing?

OK, I know, the ACLU says we're infringing on their rights.

How about my rights? Don't I have the right to demand that those whose salaries I pay be clean of drugs?

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In opposing the establishment of a desperately needed statewide prescription drug database that would reduce crime and save lives, Gov. Rick Scott has cited misguided, ill-informed and unfounded privacy concerns for patient confidentiality. Yet the governor has no problem calling for mandatory drug tests and random drug screens for as many as 100,000 innocent state workers while invading their privacy at a cost of millions of dollars. The lack of intellectual honesty here is remarkable.

Scott's intrusion into the private lives of dedicated state employees with no evidence they are illegally using drugs is wrong, ill conceived and likely unconstitutional. But that didn't stop the governor from issuing an executive order last week requiring all new hires in agencies he controls to be drug tested -- and for current employees to be tested at least four times a year. State agencies already can require employees to be tested when they are suspected of using illegal drugs, so there is no safety issue here.

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It's not just Florida that is experiencing an increase in prescription-drug abuse. The trend is nationwide.

Drug tests are part of the problem. Marijuana is the only drug that stays in the human body long enough to make urinalysis a deterrent. This is no secret. Anyone capable of an Internet search can find out how to thwart a drug test.

One of the many reasons the American Academy of Pediatrics opposes student drug testing is that drug tests may compel marijuana smokers to switch to harder drugs to avoid testing positive.

[continues 96 words]

Florida has become known for prescription drug abuse. According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, of the 50 practitioners who dispensed the most oxycodone in the country in 2008-09, 49 of them were in Florida, making Florida a destination for drug traffickers and addicts. Some Florida practitioners are prescribing and dispensing lethal amounts of controlled substances without providing any real medical care.

Most Florida doctors are dedicated professionals, but a few disreputable medical professionals are profiting by prescribing and dispensing addictive drugs. These physicians often have no ongoing clinical relationship with patients and provide no general medical care - their only undertaking is to prescribe and dispense these dangerous controlled substances.

[continues 491 words]

Gov. Rick Scott continues to express doubts about Florida's prescription drug monitoring program. But there are new signs that opposition is softening to the electronic database, aimed at stemming the state's deadly trade in addictive painkillers.

The Legislature's top supporter and opponent of the program are meeting today to hash out their differences.

The new head of the Department of Health said Tuesday that he will implement the database, if the 2009 law creating it stands, as expected.

[continues 650 words]

Florida Legislature Advances GOP Bills That Make Recipients Pay For Procedures

TALLAHASSEE - Bills are advancing in the Florida Legislature requiring all applicants for federal welfare benefits to take and pay for drug testing, despite opposition from Democrats and even some Republicans.

In a House committee hearing Wednesday, the bill's sponsor revised it to make it tougher, applying to all applicants for welfare, not just those with criminal records for drug offenses.

That brings it in line with the Senate bill, which already applied to all applicants, but also raises more questions about whether the bill is constitutional, according to the legislative staff analysis.

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You could say there's budding interest in medical marijuana in Tallahassee.

Or that the issue is taking root or that State Rep. Jeff Clemens is high on the idea.

You could say that, but it would be wrong to.

Because while medical marijuana has become a punch line in places like California, where authorities struggle to keep fly-by-night operators from selling weed to anyone and everyone claiming the slightest pain or anxiety, it is a serious matter to Clemens.

[continues 523 words]

Nicole Brochu's telling missive, "Florida lawmakers tilting at windmills with medical marijuana bill," reminds us of a century of propaganda.

The overwhelming majority of pot smokers do not move to harder drugs and are subject to arrest, asset forfeiture and incarceration for a substance that never killed anyone and might well prove to be the link to a cure for cancer if allowed to be fully studied. Furthermore, we must try something other than fear-mongering and make-work efforts for the law enforcement industrial complex.

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Keep Pill-Mill Monitoring Database on Florida's Books

Good for Senate President Mike Haridopolos, who is standing by his convictions on Florida joining 34 other states that have set up pill-mill monitoring databases to crack down on drug abuse and crime.

The Legislature approved the database in 2009 to combat the Sunshine State's reputation as the illegal drug prescription capital of the nation and the rising death toll from abuse of drugs such as oxycodone.

Pill-mill doctors illegally prescribe the narcotics to addicts, many of whom come to Florida from out of state to shop for stacks of prescriptions.

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New State Restrictions on Ex-Convicts' Privileges Raise Troubling Questions

A rush job and a big step backwards for voting rights in Florida.

That's what came down last week when Gov. Rick Scott, Chief Financial Officer Jeff Atwater, Commissioner of Agriculture Adam Putnam and Attorney General Pam Bondi reversed historic civil-rights restoration reforms for nonviolent felons created under former Gov. Crist in 2007.

The all-GOP Cabinet's unanimous vote took place in a hastily called emergency session with little notice and a scant 30 minutes of public testimony allowed, including from NAACP officials who opposed the reversal.

[continues 257 words]

Re Nicole Brochu's column, "Florida lawmaker's tilting at windmills with medical marijuana bill":

There is a real concern that the rules might be so ambiguous that an underage person can get a prescription to, say, treat a hangnail. This is already happening in other states, in spite of good-faith attempts to provide a tightly controlled, heavily regulated environment. The English language is proving to be too ambiguous to draw a clear line between what is legal and what is not. And an ambiguous law often causes more damage than it prevents.

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