The Florida Senate Criminal Justice Committee is currently hearing testimony on how to fight the problem that Attorney General Charlie Crist and Florida drug czar Jim McDonough say is claiming five lives a day.

McDonough used Limbaugh as an example of how people are obtaining powerful painkillers without a prescription. Limbaugh faces charges that he illegally obtained the pain medication.

"The pharmacist in the Limbaugh case is a pharmacist who is no longer licensed," McDonough said. But he added that the pharmacist is among numerous others who sell thousands of pills "essentially out of the trunk of his car."

McDonough said Limbaugh's case illustrates the need for a system that would allow quick prosecution of doctors and pharmacists who profit from selling prescription drugs on the black market.

"I do think we need to act more quickly, cognizant of due process, to spare lives," McDonough said.

McDonough and Crist back a bill that would establish a statewide computer network to track all prescriptions. This would enable police to identify individuals who obtain multiple prescriptions from unsuspecting physicians.

"I don't want to be ghoulish and say one person's misery is helping my cause," McDonough said. "It's illustrative of the degree to which addicts will go. They will risk their careers, their reputations, their very lives."

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