Kwanza Hall introduces pill mill" moratorium"

Still basking in the glow of his food truck victory, councilman Kwanza Hall yesterday introduced an ordinance that would crack down on pain management clinics, known pejoratively as pill mills.

Citing a 2009 Grand Jury report from Broward County, Fla. that indicates just how quickly and exponentially pain clinics — privately-owned businesses that exist exclusively to dispense pills without necessarily diagnosing patients — can proliferate, Hall suggests a year-long period during which the city would refuse to issue businesses licenses to new pain clinics.

Hall also cites the Georgia Drug and Narcotics Agency, which found that deaths from prescription drug overdoses have continued to grow, and have continued to far outnumber deaths from illicit drug overdoses.

Of businesses to which the moratorium would apply, the ordinance says ...
... all privately owned pain management clinics, facilities, or offices (including those which advertise in any medium) for the sale or dispensing of any type of pain management services, or dispensing controlled substance medications, and defined as a Schedule II, III, IV or V controlled substance as defined by Georgia law.

(Click here for Georgia's schedule of controlled substances.)

It would not, however, apply to pharmacies.