PBSO

Pablo Valenzuela was beaten before his arrest.

​Court documents call into question the timing of Palm Beach State Attorney Michael McAuliffe's decision to drop felony charges against two former cops who kicked and beat a handcuffed suspect in the head.

The memo an assistant state attorney wrote recommending that the charges be dropped is dated September 22, one day after she signed an official document declining to prosecute the case. The timing suggests the memo was written to justify a decision that had already been made -- and it had been, says Paul Zacks, chief assistant state attorney.

Zacks says Danielle Croke, the lead prosecutor on the case, dictated the memo on September 21 and signed it the next day. But discussions about revising the charges in the case had been going on for weeks at that point, ever since prosecutors viewed a newly enhanced video of the beating. "It's not like we decided on September 21," Zacks says.

In June 2009, the Palm Beach State Attorney's office filed felony charges against former West Palm Beach police officers Louis Schwartz and Kurt Graham, who were caught on a 2008 surveillance video kicking and beating a robbery suspect in the head while the man lay handcuffed, face-down on the ground. One kick was so violent, it lifted the suspect, Pablo Valenzuela, in the air. Afterward, Graham allegedly lied to his supervisor, saying Valenzuela had a More >>

Got opiates?

​Turns out, pill mills pain management clinics might not be the bastions of medical ethics once thought.

North Lauderdale's Center for Wellness and Weight Loss, Inc. claims that two former employees pilfered confidential patient information via text and tried to poach these clients from the clinic, according to a recently filed lawsuit.More >>

​After Gov. Rick Scott reluctantly withdrew his opposition to a prescription drug tracking system, a House committee dropped the proposed repeal last week and restored the database into its legislation aimed at combating prescription drug abuse.

By a vote of 116-1, the Florida House passed that bill yesterday. But one element of the bill, HB 7095, might essentially nullify the rebirth of the database.

The Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) already receives zilch in state funding, and now the House measure prohibits makers of commonly abused drugs from making donations to fund the database. Therefore, it blocks the $1 million donation offered by the maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma.

The PDMP has received enough funding for at least one year of operation and is set to begin in August. Still, such provisions will surely meet opposition as the legislation heads to the Senate.
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​Hackers. That's the governor's new concern regarding a pain-pill prescription database being launched by the Department of Health. Scott originally opposed the database, saying it impinged on privacy and was better left to private enterprise (even though the state was in the midst of a bidding dispute with a private contractor to build the database). Then a pain pill maker offered to pay a million dollars -- paltry in the face of how much pill mills rake in on a weekly basis -- to fund it. It appeared Scott wouldn't budge.

He's acquiesced a bit, allowing the DOH to proceed with a database. But in testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives today, he's raising the specter ofMore >>

A hero to the pharmaceutical industry?

​You've got to hand it to a federal drug enforcement official who actually travels around and talks to people instead of just sitting in an office thinking up ways to scare dope-smoking high-schoolers. U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske recently took a trip to Appalachia, where prescription-painkiller abuse is rampant. And guess where the folks there got their pills?

Kerlikowske asked the women how many of them had been to Florida to get their drugs. "Thirteen of the 14 raised their hand," Kerlikowske said.

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​Legitimate pain clinics should probably stop grousing over the state's shock and horror over Florida's mortal oxycodone addiction.

Did you read Bob LaMendola's story over at the Sentinel last night? Well, do. It's the one that says "newly obtained federal figures" show that Florida is the pain pill capitol of the USA, gobbling up twice as much dope as our next closest competitor. (What figures and whence they come? LaMendola doesn't say, 'cuz he's a mysterious dude.) Each year, we apparently dispense over half a billion choke-a-horse oxycodones alone. Back before Governor Scott got rid of Bruce Grant, Claude Shipley, and all those guys over at the Office of Drug Control, they'd have been happy to tell you that those pills cost seven Floridians their lives each day. Presumably, they still do. Which is a crisis, you'd think.

Not so fast!
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Commercial Medical Group, one of the raided businesses.

​The feds have taken note of South Florida's illegally run "pill mills," and a yearlong undercover investigation culminated in an early-morning raid today. It focused on mills that flouted prescription laws. Rounded up in the sweep was Zvi Perper, a Delray clinic owner and son of the Broward medical examiner -- click over to the Pulp for details.

The Sun-Sentinel witnessed a raid taking place at a clinic in Oakland Park. That paper is reporting that
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​While it may be exaggeration to say he wants Florida's "pill mills" to stay open, Rick Scott has smacked down a whole bunch of rules that would regulate and monitor their activity. First he announced a freeze on new rules that would help the state crack down on fly-by-night clinics, then he disbanded the Office of Drug Control, and finally he came out in opposition to a new publicly-funded prescription monitoring system that would prevent doctor shopping.

Now a whole different type of clinic -- which provides essential medical services to some of Florida's poorest individuals -- faces possible extinction under
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Erowid.org

Not your mama's bath salts.

​What's off-white, crumbly, sold in gas stations, and goes up your nose? Hint: You're not actually supposed to take a bath with it. The party drug MDPV, marketed as "bath salts," packs the anxiety-laden punch of a vat of coffee and the comedown of a mild meth tweak, and apparently it's all the rage among kids in Florida. It's been the subject of a spate of Sun-Sentinel articles recently, and now Attorney General Pam Bondi says she's having nightmares about failing to ban the substance.More >>

​For his ability to play through unbelievable amounts of pain, tight end Dan Johnson, who played seven years with the Dolphins in the '80s, was nicknamed "The King of Pain." He dealt with broken bones, knee injuries, and multiple back issues. Turns out, he was actually dealing with a serious addiction to pain pills, something a lot of South Floridians can relate to. Johnson tells ESPN he was "taking about 1,000 Vicodins a month."

Johnson was part of a recent study of former NFL players that found that not only has pain-pill abuse been rampant in the league for years but that many players leave the league with some hard-core addictions.
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