Federal and local drug agents swarmed a medical clinic in DeKalb County on Friday, the latest in a series of raids against alleged unlawful drug dispensers, Channel 2 Action News reported.
“We’re going to be aggressive and take these pill mill operators and literally put them out of business,” said Chuvalo Truesdell, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.
Neighboring merchants told Channel 2 how clients of the Georgia Health Associates came from as far away as Kentucky, Nevada, Texas and West Virginia to buy prescription medicines.
The clinic’s medical director, Dr. Michael S. Johnston, was not arrested and declined to answer Channel 2’s questions.
Authorities said the investigation is continuing. A locksmith changed the locks on the clinic’s doors Friday afternoon.
“We’re thrilled they’re shutting it down finally,” neighboring business owner Brad Culp told Channel 2. The clinic’s mostly out-of-state clientele, Culp said, has “been hanging out in the parking lot for months here, scaring my clients, scaring my staff.”
Earlier this week, a dozen people from seven metro Atlanta counties were indicted as part of a pill mill ring that local and federal authorities said supplied customers from numerous other states.
"Georgia is the epicenter of the pill mill pain clinic issue in the Southeast and, to a greater extent, the nation," John Comer, acting special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration Atlanta field division, told The Atlanta-Journal Constitution at the time.
Raids at 19 businesses and homes across the metro area Tuesday were the result of a yearlong investigation spearheaded by the DEA and the DeKalb County District Attorney’s Office.
Would-be pill sellers are flocking from surrounding states where stiffer laws make access to addictive pain medicine more difficult, prosecutors say. Comer estimated there are about 90 pill mills currently operating in Georgia, where only a few years ago there were fewer than a dozen.
Georgia this spring became one of the last states to approve the creation of an electronic database to monitor prescription drug dispensing. The database will identify patients who are doctor-shopping and physicians who are over-prescribing. However, it won't be operational until January 2013.
-- Staff writers Andria Simmons and Marcus K. Garner contributed to this article.
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