In recent years, Florida law enforcement has made it a point to combat trafficking in prescription drugs. Specifically, Florida law enforcement has been going after "pill mills," or pain clinics.
But while this effort to reduce the possession, sale, and trafficking of illegally prescribed medication such as oxycodone (OxyContin), hydrocodone (Vicodin), and alprazolam (Xanax), drug users are going back to a drug that was once far more popular that prescriptions. Heroin.
In what the Miami Herald is calling, "the unintended consequence of the state’s epic war on prescription pills," more and more prescription drug addicts are turning back to heroin.
Many of the popular prescription drugs such as oxycodone and hydrocodone, are opiates, as is heroin.
Possession of, sale of, and trafficking in heroin are all serious felonies. Trafficking in heroin carries mandatory prison time.