Florida..."Ground Zero" For Nation's Drug Abuse

{Frankfort, Kentucky}...An annual state Health Department report  issued Friday says Florida  is "ground zero" for the nation's prescription drug abuse problem and should share data from its new prescription drug monitoring system with other states. The tracking system began operating September 1st as part of efforts to crack down on "doctor shopping" and "pill mills" that supply drug dealers and addicts. The report says 223,700 prescriptions written in Florida were filled in other states in 2009, including Alabama, Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, Kentucky, North Dakota, Arizona and Vermont. The report says changing state law to allow for an exchange of data would help out-of-state doctors, pharmacists and law enforcement officials determine whether prescriptions came from Florida. It also says 21 million prescriptions for controlled substances were reported to the data base in its first two and a half months.