By Bill Thompson
As his family recalled him, Corey Langdale loved dirt bikes, fishing, mud-bogging in his massive red Ford pickup, tailgating at Florida Gator games and easily befriended people with his sense of humor.
Yet a demon that had gotten hold of the 24-year-old Ocalan caused his untimely demise. Langdale died 18 months ago from an accidental overdose of prescription medications.
Now his mother, Karen Ellis, wants to exorcise the evil before other parents face what she had to go through and burying a child too early.
Yet she worries that while a useful tool is in place to avert a tragedy for other families, the resources might not be there to sustain it.
Ellis, an Ocala Realtor and member the Florida Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Foundation board, is raising awareness of a new bill from state Rep. Mike Fasano, who seeks changes that affect the dispensing of prescription drugs within Florida.
Primarily, Fasano, a New Port Richey Republican, is looking to expand funding sources for the state’s prescription-monitoring database, known formally as the Electronic-Florida Online Reporting of Controlled Substances Evaluation program, or E-FORCSE.
“It was more painful for me than I anticipated,” Ellis recalled in a recent interview about becoming an activist and trying to reduce the number of deaths attributable to prescription medications.
“But I just started reading about the numbers in Florida. We have to do something. We cannot accept the state of Florida having seven deaths a day.”
In 2011, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 2,539 people — or seven a day — died with at least one prescription drug in their system that was identified as the cause of death, according to the state Medical Examiners Commission’s annual report on drug-related deaths.
The commission notes that these drugs were either the direct cause of death or worked in conjunction with other medications, illegal drugs or alcohol.
The number was actually good news.
Deaths in 2011 attributable to a fatal amount of prescription medications dropped by 6.4 percent relative to 2010, the MEC report notes.
And the number of those who, like Langdale, accidentally overdosed on a prescription drug fell by 11 percent.
While the death rate of some types of painkillers and tranquilizers was up from the previous year, the MEC observed positive trends among some of the best-known prescription drugs.
The commission defines an “occurrence” as identifying a specific drug within a decedent’s system.
In 2011, compared with the prior year, occurrences of Xanax fell by 14.3 percent, Valium dipped 1.7 percent and oxycodone dropped 11 percent.
Fatalities specifically caused by oxycodone, which Florida officials feared not so long ago was killing people at an epidemic rate, plummeted even more dramatically, down by 18 percent in 2011.
Still, on the down side, the commission pointed out that prescription drugs were discovered in the deceased more often than illegal drugs in 2011.
Ellis said her story was familiar among those she has heard from other parents.
Corey Langdale was a former football player at Belleview High School who got in trouble with marijuana after high school.
State records show that in July 2005 he was arrested for marijuana possession and grand theft. In April 2007 he was sentenced to 22 months in prison.
Ellis said he got out and rebuilt his life.
But his downward spiral from sobriety began about four months before he died, when he found prescription medications to feed his habit.
“You take away their keys. You take away their cellphones. You take away their computer. And you think you’ve stopped them from getting it,” Ellis said.
But, she added, “If they want to get their hands on it, they’re going to get it. It’s easy.”
She eventually landed a seat on the board of the Florida Prescription Drug Monitoring Program Foundation, a nonprofit created by the original 2009 anti-doctor-shopping law to help the Department of Health manage the database.
The initial effort to crush pill mills was overwhelming.
The original bill, a version of which was championed by former GOP state Rep. Kurt Kelly of Ocala, passed the state Senate unanimously and had only 10 opponents in the 120-member House.
Through the law, the foundation was empowered to help administer and maintain the database as well as conduct studies to gauge the program’s effectiveness, provide funding for future enhancements and inform the public, doctors and pharmacists about the database via public education campaigns and training workshops.
Yet lawmakers also barred the state from financially assisting in accomplishing all of that — leaving federal and private funding as the program’s only revenue source.
In 2011, the database took another hit when Gov. Rick Scott and some state lawmakers refused to budge on allowing drugmakers to fund the database, thus killing a $1 million offer to do that by Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin.
Despite that, the database finally got off the ground in September 2011. It still struggles, however.
Rep. Fasano, who as a state senator proposed the 2009 bill creating the program, has proposed several key changes.
For example, Fasano’s bill contains a new provision requiring doctors or their designees to check the database before prescribing drugs to new patients, or face a penalty if they don’t.
The measure would also to prohibit non-doctors from owning pain management clinics, the primary source for Florida’s reputation as the pill mill capital of the U.S.
Fasano’s legislation also mandates that clinics owned by big corporations register with the state.
Perhaps most importantly, Fasano wants the state and drug companies to help shoulder the costs for the database. His bill specifically strikes provisions that bar them as funding sources.
Ellis believes the effort to upend pill mills is working, and some evidence suggests that.
The 2009 bill establishing the database noted that nine Floridians a day were dying with prescription drugs in their systems. That has dropped to seven.
But the foundation drastically needs help to continue, Ellis said.
Specifically, about $500,000 in help — the amount necessary to operate the database on a yearly basis.
The funding problem could be resolved, she said, by charging those who prescribe and dispense medications a small fee — perhaps $10 or $20 — each time they renew their licenses.
Florida has 104,276 prescribers and another 27,260 dispensers, according to Ellis.
According to the Alliance of States with Prescription Monitoring Programs, Missouri is the only state that has not launched such a program or passed legislation to implement one.
Florida, however, is one of the biggest ones that refuses to publicly fund it.
Ellis said that needs to change.
“A lot of parents approach me and tell me what they’re going through with their kid because I’m an example of what not to do. My eyes have been opened,” said Ellis.
“We are all affected by this. And we really need better systems in place, like the monitoring program. We’ve got to step up to the plate somehow.”
Contact Bill Thompson at 867-4117 or at bill.thompson@starbanner.com.
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