Florida laws regulating pain management practices and prescription painkillers were supposed to crack down on the state's pill mill problem, but they have created barriers to care for many patients, according to two ABC 7 reports.

Florida, often seen as the epicenter of the nation's "pill mill" epidemic, has seen a 97 percent decrease in oxycodone purchases by state physicians since 2010, according to a DEA report.

In federal court in Maine, a Florida couple received four years and three months in prison for mailing oxycodone to a Maine couple, according to a Bangor Daily News report.

Twenty-seven physicians whose prescription pads had been stolen or duplicated cooperated in the arrests of 41 illegal users of pain medications in three Florida counties, according to a St. Petersburg Times report.