U.S. Attorney General Suggests Taking Aspirin, Not Oxycodone

TAMPA, FL – The nation’s top law enforcer visited Tampa Bay Wednesday, Feb. 7, to discuss national strategies to combat the trafficking and sale of drugs.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions told those gathered at a press conference in Tampa that he believes the Middle District of Florida, the federal judiciary district consisting of 35 counties, is doing a better-than-average job of prosecuting drug traffickers.

“This district has been highly successful in hitting the Colombian smugglers, crack dealers in Tampa and throughout the district, and particularly the doctors and pharmacists” who over-prescribe highly addictive opioids like oxycodone, fentanyl, codeine and morphine, said Sessions.

“You are maybe the nation’s leader in prosecuting this serious problem that brings addiction … and death,” he said.

In the last year, Sessions noted, drug prosecutions in the Middle District have increased by 15 percent.

Nevertheless, he said Florida continues to have a serious drug problem, particularly in regard to street drugs like heroine that are often laced with the prescription drug fentanyl to produce a deadly concoction.

He mentioned cases of drug overdoses including the death of 17-year-old Plant High School senior Katie Golden from a heroin overdose last year.

At the same time, he said local prosecutors are making headway as in the case of Felix Mejia-Lagunas who was distributing heroine on the streets of Tampa and Orlando. Mejia-Lagunas was sentenced last year to 27 years in prison.

Sessions’ visit comes just as the Florida Legislature is debating whether to tighten on opioid prescriptions.

Senate Bill 458 and House Bill 21 propose limiting prescriptions for opioids to a three-day supply for regular needs and a seven-day supply for those with chronic pain.

The bill was introduced in the wake of more than 5,700 people dying of opioid overdoes in Florida in 2016, prompting legislators to declare the problem an epidemic.

Concurrently, Florida law enforcement agencies are targeting doctors and pharmacies that routinely write prescriptions for opioids for minor aches and pains.

A new law went into effect in December that gives Florida physicians and pharmacists 24 hours to enter opioid prescription information into a statewide electronic database to identify patients who shop doctors seeking opioid prescriptions. They previously had seven days to submit the information.

But, according to a study by the University of Florida, only 21 percent of doctors and 57 percent of pharmacies are signed up to use the prescription drug monitoring database.

Therefore, both the proposed House and Senate bills would require all doctors and pharmacies to register to use the database.

Doctors also would have to take a continuing education course on prescribing opioids and check patients prescription records before writing a prescription.

All medical professionals would have to check a state prescription drug database to see patients histories before writing an opioid prescription, and pharmacists would have to verify a patient's identity before dispensing the drugs.

Sessions, who boasted that he takes nothing stronger than aspirin, believes the more restrictions are necessary to control the trafficking of illegal drugs and the crimes that accompany that activity.

"I am operating on the assumption that this country prescribes too many opioids," Sessions said. "People need to take some aspirin sometimes."

Image via AP