Pharmacists touted as last line of defense against opioid addiction
At recent Prescription Drug Awareness Conferences in Pittsburgh, DEA called for pharmacists and soon-to-be pharmacy school graduates to tighten controls over prescription opioids. “You are often going to be the last line of defense for us,” said Gary Tuggle, the DEA special agent in charge. He said that pharmacists who encounter addicts with illegitimate prescriptions should take a stand and not second-guess their instincts. Pharmacists also may discuss the issue of analgesics and addiction with patients, or even inform on prescribers who write opioid prescriptions too freely. Some pharmacists attending the conference pointed out that corporate executives often pressure them to move more medications, and encourage them to call customers at refill time to ask if they need anything else. Adam Dashner, a sixth-year student pharmacist at Duquesne University and a conference attendee, noted that refusing to fill a prescription may provide greater value to the patient and the community than filling a profitable prescription.
Filed under: General Problems
A pharmacist should be able to spot an illegitimate prescription. This is nothing new. Pharmacists have enough to do without having to police people. I see how busy the pharmacists are at my local pharmacy, and adding this extra pressure on them isn’t good. Let the DEA earn their wages and do it instead.
WHAT A CROCK OF SHIT. Someone better tell little Adam Dashner that kissing the DEA’s ASS will only get him sued in the long run. Yes LITTLE ADAM, you should always be on the lookout for fraudulent prescriptions but you better never refuse a legitimate patient his or her meds.
I have never ever had a racist bone in my body, I have always treated every one around me as a peer but I think that I’ve now become pregidous, I really hate a preticular group of people, ALPHABET AGENCIES. I have never wished I’ll on anyone but I hope every employee of the DEA get a bad case of Shingles. Let them feel pain for a while.
They are trying to say that refusing to fill your opiate prescription is in the patients best interest? That is more twisted than anything else I’ve read lately. I’m already on an ineffective dose of narcotics since the big brouhaha and crackdown by the DEA. Please tell me how the sliver of relief that keeps me able to prepare food for my son but I’m still homebound 99% of the time is going to help me when refusing to fill my prescription will throw me into withdrawal for 7 to 10 days we’re on top of the excruciating pain from CRPS is compounded with the pain of withdrawal. Somebody is not understanding what a legitimate chronic pain patient deals with every minute of every day. And tell me how refusing to fill my prescription is going to help me.
Now Pharmacist are medical doctors. They have no idea about my pain level, time Ive been taking opiates or doctors involvement but THE CROOKED DEA feel that even lacking all my medical info they still have the right to decide that I am a DRUG ADDICT. Maybe the should police themselves as to criminals inside their offices before they tell people to point the finger at me. NOW THAT BEING SAID if a patient walks into a pharmacy stoned out of his or her face maybe there is some logic to what they say but then and only then should a pharmacist judge what a licensed doctor prescribed their patient! I think that makes sense!