You have all these people who actually need the drugs because they are sick or someone got them addicted. 'A governmental agency is shutting down the supply of legal drugs to legally licensed facilities,' said Sloan Venice, organizer of the Florida Society of Pain Management ProvidersĭEA spokespersons declined to comment on the actions against wholesalers and the shortages.īut longtime pharmacist Bob Fishman, owner of Post Haste Pharmacy in Hollywood, said he doesn't blame the DEA for the shortage. Sloan said the DEA is overreacting to the problem and 'creating a crisis' for patients who may be dependent on pain medication. 'I have traveled over 100 miles looking for my medicine,' Murphy said. She finally filled her prescription in Boca Raton. The shutdowns also spooked other wholesale companies, which stopped selling pain drugs in Florida, said Paul Sloan, head of a pain clinic association.Īlicia Murphy, a Deerfield Beach cancer patient who takes oxy pills to manage chronic pain, was one of a half-dozen people who said they were turned away at several stores. Harvard has revised its oversight methods so it can sell most of the drugs and is working with the DEA to resume oxycodone sales, said company attorney Stephen E. Company officials could not be reached for comment despite several attempts by phone.

Sunrise Wholesale surrendered its DEA license. The DEA said Sunrise Wholesale in Sunrise and Michigan-based Harvard Drug Group, which has an office in Tamarac, were supplying millions of pain pills a year to pain clinics and others that sold them to patients with no medical need for them. The shortage arose after the Drug Enforcement Administration in June suspended two distributors from selling narcotic medications, including oxycodone, hydrocodone and brand-names such as Percocet and Vicodin. 'The number of out-of-state people is down noticeably. Rich Pisanti, who leads a pain clinic investigation unit in Oakland Park. 'A lot of people are out there searching,' said Broward Sheriff's Office Sgt. That includes legitimate sufferers as well as addicts and drug dealers who have turned South Florida pain clinics into a major East Coast source for narcotics. Pharmacists, police and patients with chronic pain said some clinics and small drugstores in Broward and Palm Beach counties that sell large quantities of 'oxy' and other pain pills can't get as much as before and are running out.Īs a result, patients have been forced to go from store to store to fill their prescriptions. A federal shutdown of pain pill sales at two wholesale drug companies prominent in South Florida has led to a shortage of oxycodone, an inexpensive narcotic popular in the area's controversial pain clinics.

Post haste pharmacy hollywood florida