Doctor Hauled Off In Handcuffs In Prescription Drug Raid

CATOOSA COUNTY, Ga.,None — Channel 2 Action News was the only crew at the scene Tuesday in Catoosa County as several law enforcement agencies raided the office of a doctor who is accused of writing illegal prescriptions for pain medications.

The Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit Drug Task Force, the Catoosa County Sheriff's Office, DEA and the Georgia Composite Medical Board served a search warrant Tuesday morning at a doctor's office on Cloud Springs Road.

Dr. Normal Neal, of Cleveland, Tenn., was arrested on 10 felony charges involving prescription pills.

Lookout Mountain Drug Task Force Commander Larry black told Winne that Neal is cooperating with investigators.

Neal did not comment when Channel 2 investigative reporter Mark Winne questioned him about the allegations as he was being escorted out of the office in handcuffs.

The Lookout Mountain Drug Task Force conducted an undercover investigation of the doctor for several months after receiving reports of illegal activities at Neal's office in Ringgold, Ga. Neal is alleged to have written illegal prescriptions to nonpatients for Hydrocodone and Xanax, then to have taken possession of a portion of the medications himself.

Doctor's Health Center is just one of numerous so-called pill mills in the state of Georgia. Catoosa County Sheriff Phil Summers said, "This is a statewide problem."

"Prescription drug abuse has really reached epidemic proportions in Georgia," said Sally Yates, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Georgia.

As the only state in the Southeast without a prescription drug monitoring program, Georgia has become a hub for pill mills.

"Georgia has a particular problem now because we're one of only seven states in the country that does not have a prescription drug monitoring program. And so not only are our residents able to get these drugs very easily, we have folks coming from all over the country to Georgia to get prescription drugs for abuse," Yates said.

Yates suggests a prescription drug monitoring program would keep track of prescriptions issued to patients in order to prevent them from visiting several doctors to get prescriptions for the same medication, which is known as "doctor shopping." The program would also help keep track of the pill mills.

Summers told Winne, "We have doctors come from out of state, coming into our area and setting up shop in Georgia because we have less restrictions here in Georgia than we do in South Carolina, Tennessee and other states and its becoming a tremendous challenge for local law enforcement to deal with all these new doctors setting up shop in our local counties. And we desperately need our legislators to work with law enforcement."

Summers also noted that many out-of-state users of prescription medications who visit the pill mills commit crimes while in Georgia, thereby endangering the public and creating a greater problem for local law enforcement agencies.

Yates told Winne the U.S. Attorney's Office is ramping up investigations of pill mills in metro Atlanta, which is a growing trend.

"In Florida, they passed a prescription drug monitoring program and they are just now in the process of implementing it, but what that's meant is a lot of these pill mills in Florida are now picking up and moving to Atlanta," said Yates.

Summers told Channel 2 that illegal prescription medication has recently surpassed illegal drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana as the biggest drug problem in Catoosa County. "Here in Catoosa County, the No. 1 drug issue we have today deals with prescription medications," Summers said.

Yates told Winne, "In our state last year, six more people died from prescription drug abuse than abuse of all the illegal drugs combined." Authorities told Channel 2 that prescription drug abuse is especially popular among youth.

Summers told Winne, "We've had several students in our local high schools that have died of overdoses from pain medications. We've had a number of deaths in our local county area dealing with pain management where these people were on pain management and overdosed on the medications that they had received from the doctors."

Yates echoed that concern. "People are dying," she said.

Yates' office is one of several organizations slated to host a summit at Georgia State University concerning the growth of prescription drug abuse and addiction in the state.

"This is not just a crime problem. It's a public health problem and that's one of the reasons why we're holding this summit on Wednesday, so we can bring together all the elements of the community that are really necessary to try to solve this," said Yates.

Yates told Winne the prescription drug monitoring program is not expensive and that there are federal grants available for such programs.

SB 36, a prescription drug registry bill, has recently been introduced in the State Senate.

Some privacy rights advocates have opposed such bills in the past. Former U.S. Representative Bob Barr is among those who voiced his opposition against such programs in an AJC opinion column last year.

WSBTV