Drug Topics - November 5, 2007 - (Page 18)

18 DRUG TOPICS NOVEMBER 5, 2007 www.drugtopics.com Cover Story AT RISK With pharmacies a favorite target of criminals, what can R.Ph.s do to ensure their own safety? Dana Cassell n Sep. 18, an attorney in Edmond, Okla., robbed the local Barrett Drug Center wielding a .22-caliber semiautomatic handgun. The former customer demanded oxycodone and Demerol (meperidine HCl, sanofi-aventis), then DT CAPSULE forced the owner, assistant, and a customer into a backCall attention to your room, before leaving. On Sept. 4, two masked anti-robbery safemen robbed a CVS pharmacy in Pompano guards to keep Beach, Fla., told the workers to get down perpetrators away. on the floor, walked the manager through the store at gunpoint to empty the registers, then fled. On Nov. 20, 2006, a woman fatally shot a pharmacist in the head at the Shands Jacksonville, Fla., hospital pharmacy, reportedly because the woman had been told to go to the back of the line. Pharmacists from independent, chain, or outpatient pharmacy—in urban and rural areas—are increasingly at risk for their safety. Violators may be addicted patients, professional criminals, or frustrated customers. PHARMACISTS O Google search for local newspaper accounts of pharmacy robberies yielded 584 results just over the past year— from Stollings, W.V., to Portland, Ore. In June, the National Drug Intelligence Center reported that pharmacy robberies and burglaries in the Denver metropolitan area increased 50% in each of the past two years. The robbery problem in New York is such that many pharmacists there carry concealed weapons, according to Craig Burridge, executive director, Pharmacists Society of the State of New York (PSSNY). “Very few groups in New York can get a permit for a pistol, and pharmacists make up one of those groups,” he said. But it isn’t only the armed robber who incites violence in the pharmacy workplace. “Road rage” and “going postal” are giving way to “patient rage,” as customers struggle to deal with Medicare and insurance complexities along with life’s other challenges. Burridge related the story of one N.Y. R.Ph. who had to tell a patient he could not fill a prescription because all three of his Medicaid cards, from three different states, had been declined. “The guy waited for the pharmacist to close and stabbed him to death.” Why the surge in pharmacy violence? Capt. Richard Conklin, Stamford, Conn., Police Department, who manages RxPATROL, sees three recent developments behind the trend in pharmacy theft, which he’s watched spiral upward over the past five years: 1. Tightening of our borders and ports. While watching for terrorist activity, Homeland Security initiatives have seized a higher percentage of illicit in- The scope of the problem RxPATROL, a collaborative effort between Purdue Pharma and law enforcement that tracks thefts from pharmacies, has had 760 pharmacy robberies reported since its inception in 2003. The only national data available specifically for pharmacy robberies, those voluntary reports offer but a glimpse into the problem. A Photo: Jim Shive http://www.drugtopics.com

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Drug Topics - November 5, 2007 Contents Latebreakers Latebreakers in Depth Letters Rx Care Community Practice 150 Years of American Pharmacy Hospital Practice Pharmacists at Risk Government and Law High-Density Lipoprotein New Products Advertisers Index Classified Viewpoint

Drug Topics - November 5, 2007

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