By Lee Peck - bio | email
LAKE CHARLES, LA (KPLC) - "When they caught me I had 300 lorcets on me and that was an average of what I would keep on me: 300 lorcets, 400 somas and 100 or so xanax." -- Until he was busted by the Calcasieu Combined Anti-Drug Team last July, this inmate who we'll call "Rob" -- operated on the streets of Calcasieu parish for five years as a prescription drug dealer. Filling his endless supply through Texas pain management clinics -- he says it was too easy.
"The records were fake, they wasn't mine, they wasn't nothing to do with me -- they just had my name on them on top of the piece of paper and had somebody else's problems written on it," said Rob. "Out of the 30 to 40 doctors that I went to over the last 4 to 5 years I've only been verified one time on records and thrown out of the doctor's office."
It's a wide spread problem local officials have been trying to combat for more than two years. You'll remember when we followed them to the Texas Legislature as they testified before lawmakers about the need for regulating Texas pain management clinics. Now two laws sponsored by Texas Senator Tony Williams are set to go before lawmakers. The first would tighten who can own and operate a pain management clinic.
"That will require that all pain management clinics operating in Texas be licensed and that all pain management clinics in Texas hereafter will have to be owned and operated by a medical director who is a physician licensed to practice medicine in Texas," explained Calcasieu Parish District Attorney John DeRosier.
DeRosier says the proposed measure was patterned after the Louisiana statute that drastically shut down the number of pain management clinics in Louisiana. "It decreased from over 100 pain management clinics to just a small handful," said DeRosier.
The accompanying statute would target doctor shoppers -- those who get pain pills from more than one doctor or more than one pharmacy. DeRosier says the prescription drug monitoring program that went into effect in Louisiana January 1st of this year has already led to some prosecutions.
"We now have the ability to monitor people who are getting prescriptions for controlled dangerous substances, particularly multiple prescriptions. So now there is no escape because pharmacies have to log that into a central registry with the state," said DeRosier.
But local officials aren't stopping here. They visited with Center for Disease Control back in November to launch a nationwide campaign of awareness. "The CDC is now very much on board with that they have labeled the project an epidemic in the abuse of pain management pharmaceuticals in the United States of America and there are a number of programs we are going to try to get into to stop that from spreading all over the country," said DeRosier.
Unlike Louisiana, Texas legislators only meet for a full session once every other year. District Attorney John DeRosier -- says they'll likely head back to Austin in the very near future to testify again once this proposed legislation hits the floor.
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