Why you should not sell drugs.

 This is the story I heard from my friend's colleague. From this information, I cannot ensure how credible it is, but the message it sends is valid none the less.

The is the story of a pharmacist who decided to steal Fentanyl patches from the store she worked at and sold them illegally to customers without prescriptions. For those who don't know, fentanyl is an opioid analgesic, and like all opioid medicines have an addictive potential. Patients who become dependent on opioids will experience withdraw symptoms when they don't have the drug in their system, and on occasion exhibit drug seeking behavior to get hold of the medication. As of such, the government schedules these medicines as Controlled Drugs (S8 medicines), and require them to be locked up in a safe when stored in a pharmacy. The regulations to how these medicines can be obtained is a lot stricter compared to regular medicines.  Combining the strict regulations to obtain the medicine legally and the nature of this medicine, it is plain to see that there is a market for selling this medicine illegally. 

In order to make some extra money on the side, the pharmacist was selling the medication illegally to patients without a prescription. Unfortunately, the person she sold a fentanyl patch to had passed away from drug over dose. I have not heard what happened to the pharmacist, but I am sure she is in a lot of trouble. 

Putting obvious legal and ethical reasons aside to why we shouldn't break the law and sell controlled medicines illicitly. Selling S8 medicines would have its economical perks. Compared to the official dispensing price of $5.90 for 25 temazepam tablets, I have heard that on the street can go up to hundreds of dollars per tablet. Surely if these tablets are this lucrative, us pharmacists must be selling the product wrongly if we only charge patients $5.90 a box!

It is understandable why this pharmacist took the risk of selling the patches. But judging from the outcome, it does not seem worth the risk. How much money would she have made from selling fentanyl patches? $100 a patch? $200 a patch? Selling 10 of them would get you $2000 dollars. I do not think she would have made more than $15,000 on the side, however she has ended up killing a patient. 

From what I feel, she would now have her license revoked, and possible face a jail sentence. Was this all worth the $15,000?

I don't know how she feels at the moment, but I feel my freedom is worth more than just $15,000.