As deaths related to drug overdoses and narcotic abuse rise in Georgia, the state is doing what it can to limit the abuse and close clinics that sell prescriptions. That includes working on enacting a law that will bypass the current system: taking months and spending tens of thousands of dollars on sting operations, under cover police posing as patients, etc.

State Attorney General Sam Olens and state Rep. Tom Weldon, R-Ringgold, are among those seeking a pill mill law that would impose regulations on pain management clinics and allow law enforcement to shut down clinics that don’t abide. Olens and Weldon have put the proposal at the top of their respective agendas for the next legislative session.

Rick Allen, Georgia Drugs & Narcotics Agency director, also has offered support for a pill mill law. He said the number of pain-management clinics in the state has mushroomed from fewer than a dozen to more than 90 in less than two years.

The article opens with a story of a 27 year old who died at the hands of a "Pill Mill" that was closed several months prior, but takes its time to really explain how pill mills work and exactly what the growth means to drug abuse in the state:

Pill mills, like the suspected one in Stockbridge, frequently advertise their services on billboards and roadside signs. Some keep security guards on staff to discourage unwelcome visitors.

Weldon said he called a phone number from a billboard just over the Tennessee line from his home district of Ringgold, and it rang back to a Georgia number. The lawmaker was asked why he was calling, where he was calling from and who he was, but nothing about his symptoms.

“All they wanted to know was, ‘When can you come in and see a doctor?’ ” Weldon said.

Many pill mills operate on a cash-only basis to avoid having their customer payments tracked.Henry County investigators say the Stockbridge pain center charged $350 on the first visit and $250 on subsequent ones to obtain prescriptions for oxycodone.

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Pill mills appear partly to blame for the rise in prescription drug overdose deaths statewide. Overdoses climbed 10 percent between 2009 and last year. Of 729 drug overdose deaths recorded last year, 560 involved prescription drugs, according to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation.