A few states, including Florida have yet to take steps to monitor pain medications like Vicodin and OxyContin -luring black market dealers and addicts into these states in droves.

According to federal authorities, more than 30 other states have initiated these prescription monitoring programs reducing drug access in Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Nevada, Utah and other states. The rule of thumb is that many states require prescription information be submitted to a central database. Before a doctor prescribes the pain medications, he or she can alert authorities to suspicious patient files.

In Florida, there have been efforts to enforce a similar tracking program, but privacy and cost concerns have interfered with the process. Bill Janes, director of the state's office of drug control stated that Florida had to devise a database system that will account for doctors and independent pharmacies that use different electronic filling systems than most national drug store chains. In other words, according to Bill Janes, "if someone is showing up with stolen or forged prescriptions, that information should be easily accessible."

Florida Law Enforcement Agent Richard Ward works with regional drug diversion response teams and said that there were only a small number of doctors and pharmacists who have caused most of the problem. He believes that there are many good doctors and pharmacists - but there are a few that are out to make money.

Unfortunately, these clinicians are located all over the United States. Five major pain pill prescriptions are high on the list of prescribed medications--morphine, codeine meperidine, oxycodone and hydrocodone. In Florida alone, reports stated that there was a 142 percent increase in prescriptions for those drugs between 1997 and 2005. That is the 10th highest percentage increase in the nation, according to an Associated Press analysis of Drug Enforcement Administration data.

In a related story released by the Associated Press analysis of federal drug prescription data, it was reported that sales of these five painkillers have nearly doubled in the past eight years. Oxycodone use has migrated out of Appalachia to places like Columbus, Ohio and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and there are a huge number of codeine users living all over the United States.

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