YOU CAN TAKE THE MAN OUT OF FLORIDA, BUT YOU CAN’T TAKE FLORIDA OUT OF THE MAN –

July 15, 2021- A Palm Beach County drug testing lab and 10 South Florida treatment centers worked together to fraudulently bill more than $141 million in unwarranted urine testing of drug addicts, Palm Beach County State Attorney Dave Aronberg said Tuesday.  Aronberg said 15 people have been arrested in Florida, increasing the total number of arrests by the county’s Sober Homes Task Force to 85 since 2016.  The task force coordinated its work with law enforcement in Pennsylvania, where 20 people have been arrested in connection with the scheme. Aronberg said it’s all part of the task force’s efforts to end the “Florida shuffle” that lures drug addicts to the Sunshine State with the promise of recovery but often ends up leaving them on the street when their insurance runs out.  “The Florida shuffle doesn’t end at the Florida border, and certainly not at the Palm Beach County border,” he said at an afternoon news conference. “Today sends a message that labs that engage in kickback schemes will not be able to hide behind corporate walls to conceal unlawful activity.”  Palm Beach County officials have unleashed a stampede of lawyers, health officials, police and rehab specialists to tackle the opioid epidemic that kills hundreds a year in Palm Beach County alone.

Owners of rogue sober homes have been arrested. Narcan, the nasal spray that halts an overdose, became widely used on patients by rescuers, and now can be purchased over the counter. And cities began hiring staff to work with people hooked on drugs, including Delray Beach, where the police department has its own social worker dedicated to the homeless and the addicted.  Contributing to the quantity and intensity of overdoses was the increased usage of fentanyl, a synthetic painkiller 100 times more potent than morphine, and carfentanil, 10,000 times stronger than morphine.

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