Ethics

Aren't you tired of it? Aren't you tired of Florida in general, and South Florida in particular, being the scam capital of the Southeast?

We all know about the political corruption. Three former Palm Beach County commissioners are in prison. Two ex-West Palm Beach city commissioners did time and are out. Broward County features Scott Rothstein, the Bernie Madoff Mini-Me, and other political scandals at various levels. Miami-Dade for decades has been known as the county that runs on graft.

But it's so much more. It's Medicare and Medicaid fraud. As a senator, Bob Graham started a whole task force on that 13 years ago. It's auto insurance fraud, which South Florida has exported to Orlando and Tampa Bay. It's boiler-room, white-collar scamming in my hometown of Boca Raton.

And now, it's pain-pill smuggling. You've read in The Post for months how sleazy "entrepreneurs" set up pain clinics that churn out the drugs for shipment to other Southern states where they're sold at huge markups. You've read about the doctors in name only who help make it possible. Then last week, you read about the FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office raiding three Palm Beach County pain clinics that allegedly were money machines for operators whose priority was anything but helping those with chronic pain.

Consider Item 22 on the complaint from the raids, which were more than a year in the making, According to investigators, one doctor in name only prescribed 469,578 oxycodone pills last year. Another prescribed 439,599 pills. Another prescribed 438,759 pills. Another prescribed 418,574 pills. Another prescribed 401,200 pills. You think all those pills were for arthritis patients?

Worse, that total of almost 2.2 million doesn't include pills dispensed directly from the clinic. Nationwide, the complaint says, those doctors in name only at that one clinic ranked fifth, eighth, 12th, 16th and 20th in the number of oxycodone pills prescribed during the first nine months of last year.

Reading the complaint, you understand why the sleazeballs went into the business. Florida's clinic regulations are weaker than 3.2 beer, and the money makes Wall Street bonuses look small. One undercover investigator met a man who acknowledged that he was a front for the real owner of the clinic. The man had a backpack with $50,000 in cash that he explained was the take from a single day at the clinic.

Basically, the clinics launder money for drug smugglers. People from South Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky, the fake owner said, buy pills here for $5 and resell them in those states for as much as $80. In one decade, a supposed wonder drug created a new, illicit industry to feed a new class of addicts.

This joint task force began in Broward County, where a grand jury last year issued the same sort of direct, compelling report on pain clinics that a Palm Beach County grand jury issued last year on political corruption. Each is a how-to for a Legislature that might want to one day show Florida that Tallahassee can do more than cater to lobbyists or protect its own.

We've heard a lot in Tallahassee the past couple of years — as the recession shreds the state's business model — that Florida needs to reinvent itself. True enough, but it means more than encouraging legitimate industries and the jobs that go with them. It means creating a climate that is hostile to the scam and corruption industries.

As the Economic Council of Palm Beach County pointed out last year, political corruption and insider government dealing aren't just bad; they're bad for business. A few people benefit, but the community as a whole suffers.

In addition, every one of us in Florida pays for the scammers. Our auto insurance costs more because of the fake crashes and fake clinics. We and the rest of the country pay for the Medicare and Medicaid fraud. What to do? Track it and crack it. Go after it the way Palm Beach County has gone after gangs. We've been able tell colorful stories about con artists for years. The stories are getting old.