AG Pam Bondi Focuses on Prescription Drug Abuse

Happy New Year to all of you. An article in today's Miami Herald http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/31/1995960/pam-bondi-sets-stage-for-attorney.htmlreports that Florida's new Attorney General, Pam Bondi, named former state Senator Dave Aronberg to a new post focusing on prescription drug abuse.

`What I want to do is bring people together on all sides who all care about the issue,'' she (AG Pam Bondi) said.
The position is the only post Bondi has created in an organization with more than 1,100 employees. She is otherwise streamlining the office by eliminating three high-level jobs to trim $250,000 from the budget.
Shortly after her election, Bondi signaled she planned to make pain clinics that excessively dole out prescription drugs -- so-called pill mills -- a focus of her office. She set up a transition team that included Aronberg to examine the problem.
`We're at a critical point in our state regarding the number of pill mills. The numbers are staggering. We've got to do something to stop it,'' Bondi said. `Just the other day I had someone say that a friend's child overdosed. I said, `It was Oxycontin, wasn't it?' They said, `How did you know?' It's so widespread in our state. That's something we don't want to be known for.''
Bondi's move is likely to come as good news to people concerned that Gov.-elect Rick Scott opted to cut the Office of Drug Control. Aronberg will be based in South Florida and earn $92,000 a year as special counsel for the pill mill initiative.

We should definitely support the new AG in her efforts to curb prescription drug abuse but should point out that with the abolishment of the Offiice of Drug Control we have lost the organizational capability to coordinate all necessary efforts to execute and implement an effective plan to stop drug dealers in a white coat to perpetuate their business.
Furthermore, we do NOT have to start all over to study the problem! We have done so already and know what to do.
Its now time to walk the walk and not talk the talk. We should call upon AG Pam Bondi to act now and declare a public health emergency and implement the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program immediately which is being hold up in a petty bidding dispute.
Now is the time to act and not to reconsider. Meanwhile, 7 Floridians die every day from prescription drug overdose and we must stop the bleeding.
Yours
Bernd