Over 10 yrs ago, Florida limited the pill mill industry following rampant drug sales, crime and overdoses. But a new federal probe of a drug distribution ring in South Florida is raising questions about state oversight of pain clinics. My story for @WLRN:.

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Yesterday I talked about the ongoing problem of pill mills in South Florida and state overight gaps on @WLRN’s South Florida Roundup show with @TimPadgett2 🎧💥.

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Meanwhile, Margulian and Olushola Yusuf, a Tampa-based pharmacist accused of participating in the scheme, are out on bond and have no restrictions on their medical licenses. The DOH said it could not comment on "any possible cases" until after a disciplinary board investigates.

The goal of the PDMP is to “provide the information maintained in the system to health care practitioners to augment their clinical decision making,” DOH press secretary Isabel Kilman wrote.

@HealthyFla did not respond directly to a list of questions sent by WLRN, nor requests to interview the director of the state’s PDMP, but the agency instead provided a statement:.

I caught @aronberg last month after an event for his book "Fighting the Florida Shuffle" about prosecuting opioid-related fraud. He was the former PB State Attorney. Of the PDMP, he said: "It's up to the doctor or the pharmacist to alert the authorities that something is amiss.".

Another piece of legislation that might have caught these alleged pill mills - the Prescription Drug Monitoring Program (PDMP) - was originally designed by the FL legislature to be "passive," according to @aronberg.

These inspections were mandated as part of a 2010 law passed to stop illegal pill mills.

“ If you have four walls, a roof and clean equipment, basically you're halfway there,” Lisa McElhaney, president of @NADDIORG, said of the state inspections. They focus on procedural items, rather than the doctor’s prescribing patterns, she said.

@HealthyFla inspections of Margulian's clinics reported no serious issues in 2023-24, despite the @DOJCrimDiv alleging - during that same time period - he was prescribing opioids to recruited clients “without regard to medical need.”.

@WLRN set out to understand how the accused doctor, pharmacists and recruiters sold millions of pills illegally for at least three years, without the state’s two marquee pill mill laws flagging issues sooner.

The case is tied to at least 2 Broward pharmacies, 2 pharmacists and 2 patient recruiters allegedly exchanging large amounts of cash for opioid prescriptions — filled repeatedly to the same individuals. The end goal was “to generate and conceal large profits,” indictments say.

In early June, federal prosecutors accused Dr. Sergei Margulian, 58, of Hallandale Beach, of doling out oxycodone to clients he never examined, prescribing roughly 2.9 million pills out of clinics in Broward and Miami-Dade counties between 2021 and 2024.

RT @WLRN: Federal investigation of South Florida pill mill ring raises questions about state oversight (via @jake4shore) .

More bad news for Brightline. Sharp reporting from @JoshCeb and @aaron_leib .

“ICE remains committed to ensuring that all those in its custody reside in safe, secure, and humane environments,” an @ICEgov statement from April said. “At no time during detention is a detained illegal alien denied emergent care.”.