Schumer to Fla.: Track prescription drugs
Sen. Charles Schumer. (Sept. 27, 2010) Credit: Newsday / Audrey C. Tiernan
The "Flamingo Express" that brings prescription drugs like OxyContin from Florida illegally to the streets of New York is under fire from Sen. Charles Schumer, who called on Florida's governor Sunday to begin tracking prescription drugs like other states.
"Drugs get dropped off, sold on our streets, and do real damage to our young people," Schumer said of the so-called drug highway from Florida.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott earlier this month omitted the monitoring program from his proposed budget, even though its funding was covered by federal and private funds and was approved by the state Legislature.
The program would have allowed doctors to track narcotic prescriptions to help stop the practice of "doctor shopping" - when a patient creates a stockpile of narcotics by getting prescriptions from different doctors, and filling them over and over at different pharmacies. New York already has such a monitoring program in place.
Scott's office did not respond to a request for comment Sunday.
Schumer, who teamed up with Democratic senators from West Virginia, Florida and Rhode Island to write the letter to Scott, a Republican, called Florida the "number one exporter of prescription drugs that flood our streets."
Nassau County District Attorney Kathleen Rice supported the effort.
"What they are doing in Florida will have an immediate and direct impact on the prescription drug market in our county," she said. "We must target Nassau's imported crime problems like guns and narcotics not only in our neighborhoods but also where they come from, and when it comes to prescription drugs that very often means the state of Florida."
Prescription-drug arrests in Nassau County tripled from 168 in 2008 to 673 in 2009, and prescription drug-related deaths rose by 264 percent between 2005 and 2009, according to statistics Rice provided to Schumer's office.
Similar numbers for Suffolk County were not immediately available.
Jeffrey Reynolds, executive director of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence, said that, while a prescription-drug database is a good first step for any state, people driven by addiction or drug dealers motivated by profit were likely to find a way to get the drugs anyway.
"I think the issue of Florida is a very real issue, but it's not the only issue," Reynolds said.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
Out East with Doug Geed: Wine harvests, a fish market, baked treats and poinsettias NewsdayTV's Doug Geed visits two wineries and a fish market, and then it's time for holiday cheer, with a visit to a bakery and poinsettia greenhouses.
