Local Government Commissioners Deadlocked on Pill Mill Pregnancy Tests

BRADENTON --  Loving, caring and wanting to make things better, a crowd of citizens filled the BOCC chambers yesterday, telling their stories and touching our hearts. We never know just how much we can fix things for those who are struggling with addiction against all odds, but it's good to know that there are some who never give up. We all got closer to a better world yesterday when the commissioners voted in Ordinance 12-14, though an important component remains unresolved.     

Ordinance 12-14 is a book-sized document full of angles and principles, rules and regulations that attempt to harness the most troubling and destructive lack of oversight that has perhaps ever come along in modern Florida. That is admittedly a mouthful and it's as big as it sounds. The phenomenon has taken millions of lives across this country and trashed them. They are Pill Mills and are eating souls alive all over Florida and right here in Manatee County.

Prescription drugs kill more people than all of the heroin and cocaine combined, even at their worst time in history. They are costing this country billions of dollars in productivity and healthcare, and they are being distributed by doctors. Oxycontin and other opioids have taken this country by storm, and those making these dreadful choices aren't the only ones paying the price.

In the ordinance, there is a paragraph five which specifies that all women who seek out pain relief from a doctor be required to take a pregnancy test to insure there isn't an unborn child forced to encounter the drug the mother is prescribed. When under the influence of a dreadful addiction, even mothers don't always make the best decisions. So the ordinance, written to washout the bad doctors that are writing these scripts, attempted to try and pull some much needed protection for the unborn under its umbrella.

Some see this as overly-controlling and burdening for the doctors that are doing nothing wrong, but those who crafted the ordinance see it as near necessary and worth the burden. Those unborn, unfortunately have no say to what kind of world they will be born into, so the emotions were running high for the authors who wanted Paragraph five to stay in the ordinance. 

So many professionals stood and spilled their heartfelt notions in attempt to have the 12-14 passed complete, with paragraph five, but there were some, including the county attorney Jim Minix, who saw verbiage that left the county vulnerable to possible lawsuits and also felt the most recent state statue, passed in July, 2011, pretty much covered most of the angle paragraph five addressed. 

Those like-minded with Minix, who wanted paragraph five gone for whatever reason, finally got their way - sort of. The board's vote with paragraph five included was obviously going to be split 3-3 with Commissioners DiSabatino, McClash and Gallen favoring it and Commissioners Bustle, Chappie and Whitmore wanting it out. So to ensure the vote could be revisited when Commissioner Hayes was present, (the missing deciding vote), the commission voted in the ordinance unanimously. This will allow a motion to amend at a later date and a guaranteed second when there is a full commission. 

Most of what everyone was set out to do was accomplished, but a small part of some pretty big futures, will live to fight another day. We'll have to wait until the amendment motion to see which way Commissioner Hayes swings the vote on paragraph 5.