We are not the drug police, but we do try hard to keep all the Mr Cracky McCrackheads that we can from getting their “fix”. However, it is very difficult sometimes, especially, in the state where I practice. You see, it is perfectly legal for a physician to write a prescription for percocet on a piece of toilet paper with a crayon. There is no standard issue Rx pad. So who is going to pay for me to spend my time investigating and scrutinizing every last narcotic prescription? The ones that get past us are the ones that look real. If you want to make it easy for us make it a law that every physician use the same Rx pad. That will cut down your work load considerably. Next, you have to remember that the pharmacist has a tremendous amount of respect for his license, however, the unlicensed owners only have respect for the money that they can make from our license. If you want why don’t you lock up every pharmacist that has unwittingly dispensed a fake Rx but keep in mind if you do that there will be no one left to fill your prescription. Asking pharmacists to help you is pointless because we are already on your side. If I owned my own pharmacy and I suspect someone is trying to dupe me, I have the luxury of telling them never to step foot in my store again, however if I work for a big company I do not have that luxury. As a matter of fact, if I do tell the questionable “patient” never to come back, the company will send him a gift basket and fire me. So you really need to appeal to the people that control how pharmacy operates, the ones that own the pharmacies, not the pharmacists who have no control over the operation. How am I going to copy someone’s ID? You need a photo copier for that and the one we have is located clear across the other side of the supermarket, would you have me leave my narcotics unattended for 10 min while I wait at the customer service desk for the key to the copier, while the junkie can stroll right in and take everything he wants, it’s very easy for him to do that since it’s perfectly legal for the pharmacy to have oxycontin right on the shelf in alphabetical order with guarded by a simple 1/2 door to access the pharmacy. Go pester the the company that owns the pharmacy or the state board to have stricter requirements on design and make it a requirement to scan everyone’s ID just like we must do for pseudoephedrine products. I am sure they will kick you their door faster that you walk in with that suggestion. If you want to talk to people that can change this talk to the people who own the pharmacy, not the pharmacist who is so inundated with work and without enough people to help him that he doesn’t have time to take a piss. The bottom line for you and me is not the same as the bottom line for these greedy corporations that employ us to exploit our license.

Get to work, you have a big job ahead of you. Oh wait, I forgot, you are only able to enforce laws and have no power to make them. Ok then your only choice is to put every pharmacist in jail because you say that we are committing crimes. The huge companies would love that, because now you see they will cry to their politicians that there is no one to do the work and make them pass laws that will allow any schlep to dispense their drugs. You will have more work on your hands that you could possibly imagine and the streets will be full of oxycontin. Understand, that most of us try our best not to be duped and be thankful of the job we do, if you want less drugs on the street change the system. God knows we have no control over it, it’s being taken away from us piece by piece all in the name of greed.