ERWIN, TENN. — Cpl. Stacy Wigand of the Unicoi County Sheriff's Department has long been accustomed to the prescription drug problem that plagues his mountain community in eastern Tennessee.
But his discovery on a recent Friday night was indicative of the new wave of trouble sweeping through the hills and hollows of Appalachia -- trouble that is increasingly coming from sunny South Florida.
The manager of the local Wal-Mart had called to report an SUV in the parking lot, with Kentucky plates and a driver who appeared to be asleep. Wigand discovered a clutch of little pills in the man's pocket.
Two of his friends were found wandering inside the store, too blitzed to pass a field sobriety test.
"They couldn't even count to four," Wigand said.
Wigand searched the car and found six bottles of the prescription painkiller oxycodone in the engine compartment -- 1,168 pills in all. From the bottles, it appeared the trio of Kentuckians had obtained the drugs two days earlier with prescriptions written by two doctors from Broward County, Fla.
In counties like this one, Florida opiates are giving oranges a run for their money as the Sunshine State's best-known export.
With most Appalachian states now closely monitoring narcotics prescriptions with the aid of statewide computer databases, officials in these states now say their drug addicts and dealers are taking their business to South Florida, where they often use fraud and deceit to purchase pills that are legally dispensed by doctors at storefront "pain clinics."
The poorly regulated clinics often advertise on the Internet, making specific pitches to non-Floridians. A Web page for the Broward Pain Clinic says it accepts "patients from all states," and requires that patients bring proof of their pain. An unidentified employee who answered the phone at the clinic recently said that it was a cash-only business and did not accept insurance.
Anti-drug advocates say Florida has become a magnet for pill buyers in part because it is the largest state in the nation without a prescription-monitoring program. Thirty-two other states, including California, operate such systems, which typically allow doctors and pharmacists to access a patient's prescription history, limiting prescription forgery and "doctor shopping," in which patients seek pain drugs from numerous physicians.
