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Regional Deviations From National Trends
The following regional summaries provide overviews of the diversion and abuse
situation in the nine OCDETF regions, highlighting significant regional deviations
from national-level trends. The summaries were prepared through detailed analysis
of recent law enforcement reporting, information obtained through interviews with
law enforcement and public health officials, and currently available statistical
data.
Figure 20.
Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force Regions
Florida/Caribbean Region
- The number of medical facilities from which large amounts of narcotic
painkillers are dispensed has increased over the past 5 years. DEA-registered
physicians working at these facilities dispense prescription narcotics directly
to patients.
- The number of Internet pharmacies operating in Florida has decreased
significantly since 2005, following criminal investigations, administrative
actions against pharmacies, and the DEA Distributor Initiative.
- Individuals from Kentucky, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio, and West
Virginia travel to Florida, primarily Fort Lauderdale, to acquire CPDs for
illicit distribution, primarily oxycodone products.
Great Lakes Region
- No deviations from national trends were reported in 2008.
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Mid-Atlantic Region
- Propoxyphene-related deaths have increased in Philadelphia over the
past 5 years.
- Many CPD abusers in Philadelphia seek a lower-dose formulation of Percocet®
over OxyContin®.
- Prescription drug rings often use global positioning systems (GPSs)
to locate pharmacies at which they can fill fraudulent prescriptions. The
drugs are traded or sold at the retail level, often for other illicit drugs,
such as marijuana or cocaine.
- Street dealers of marijuana, cocaine, and heroin in Pennsylvania also
sell CPDs.
- Diverted CPDs are sold from open-air drug markets located near narcotic
treatment program (NTP) facilities in the District of Columbia.
New England Region
- Heroin in New England is often more than 90 percent pure, which makes
transitioning from prescription opioid abuse to heroin easier for abusers.
- Individuals crossing the U.S.-Canada border smuggle CPDs into the United
States.
New York/New Jersey Region
- Members of traditional organized crime, a Dominican organization, and
Bloods and Crips street gangs are involved in CPD trafficking.
- Diversion and abuse are increasing on some Native American reservations
in New Mexico, Washington State, and the northwestern portion of California.
- Bulk quantities of CPDs are transported to Oregon from southern California
and Mexico.
- The number of treatment programs in Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina,
and Tennessee has risen, primarily as a result of the increase in the number
of prescription opioid and benzodiazepine abusers.
- Pain clinics in Tennessee are not regulated and often employ doctors
whose licenses have been suspended or revoked.
- Many residents of Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and southern California
travel to Mexico to obtain CPDs both with and without legitimate prescriptions.
- Doctors at pain clinics in Houston supply hydrocodone products to other
cities in Texas and in Louisiana.
- Organized diversion rings operate in Houston; they involve "crew bosses"
who round up homeless individuals and occupants of halfway houses in groups
of 15 or more and take them to pain clinics, where doctors readily provide
prescriptions. After the prescriptions have been faxed to pharmacies and
filled, the homeless individuals pick up the drugs and provide them to the
crew bosses.
- Mexican traffickers walk CPDs across the U.S.-Mexico border; they often
distribute the drugs themselves or supply them to street dealers, who sell
the drugs in the United States, particularly in border towns.
- Oklahoma currently has more narcotic treatment programs than at any
prior time in the state's history; a majority of patients are receiving
treatment for prescription opioid abuse.
- Organized criminal groups divert CPDs and sell them in Mexico to some
pharmacies. The pharmacies in turn resell them to U.S. citizens who purchase
the drugs on rogue Internet pharmacy sites.
- Street gang members in southern California divert CPDs and sell the
drugs to their own gang members.
- Criminals use stolen laptops and free Wi-Fi (wireless Internet connections)
to access web sites from which they can obtain the names of physicians and
their DEA registration numbers. They use this information to create fraudulent
prescriptions.
- Diverted CPDs are sold at flea markets, outside NTP facilities, and
near colleges in El Paso.
- A significant clustering of opioid abuse and overdose deaths are evident
along the New Mexico portion of the U.S.-Mexico border.
- The same methods used by traffickers to smuggle illicit drugs such as
cocaine, heroin, marijuana, and methamphetamine into the United States from
Mexico--private vehicles, commercial trucks, tractor-trailers, and pedestrians--are
used by distributors to transport CPDs from Mexico into New Mexico.
West Central Region
- In Kansas City, Missouri, some 15- to 25-year-old CPD abusers have switched
to methamphetamine.
- Native Americans on South Dakota reservations fill the same prescription
twice, once at Indian Health Service pharmacies and once at off-reservation
pharmacies.
- Colorado gang members divert CPDs by using individuals who doctor-shop
for them.
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