This article in Bloomberg Businessweek puts a human face on the opioid crisis – an interview with one of the owners of the largest Florida “pill mill” provider of prescription versions of Oxycontin. Now in jail, Christopher George provides some insight into how pill mills work and just how DEA regulations work and don’t work.

It’s a horrendous problem for society (according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 14,800 Americans died from overdosing on opioids in 2008, the most recent year data is available—more than the number of deaths from heroin or cocaine), as we’ve frequently noted at MCNtalk in the past. There were 335 million prescriptions for painkillers written in 2011. Is it any wonder some of them were from criminals? Read more…