supply and demand at work .. Econ 101 ?

Pharmacy robberies on the increase

http://www.kctv5.com/story/29119574/pharmacy-robberies-on-the-increase

Last month, a man walked into an Overland Park CVS pharmacy and robbed the store of the drug hydrocodone. 

Earlier this month in Independence, a man and woman were wanted in connection to a Walgreens robbery where police say the woman robbed a pharmacy employee at gunpoint and got away with hundreds of dollars in prescription drugs. 

Also this month, the Walgreens on Northeast Vivion Road in Kansas City was hit for drugs. Police say the two men walked into the store, demanded and received prescription pills before running off.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, pharmacy robberies are on the rise across the country. There were 713 in 2013, 829 last year and there have already been 203 reported in just the first three months of 2015.

Pharmacist Daniel Reif doesn’t need a report to tell him things are bad.

“I’ve been burglarized in the last six months. I’ve had a theft in the last six months and it’s definitely starting to get out of hand,” Reif said.

Reif said there isn’t just one specific hot drug item.

“We’ve had our Oxycodone, Diazepams, Valiums, a little bit of everything… they seem to want,” he said.

Now he’s forced to make changes to keep him and his employees safe. Reif said he’s keeping less product in his store and only ordering the most stolen drugs on an as-needed basis for an overnight delivery. 

He says this way crooks won’t find what they’re looking for, but he and his employees can still get the right medicine to people who legitimately and legally are supposed to have them.

8 Responses

  1. https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-future/license-plate-scanners-also-taking-photos-drivers-and-passengers

    “The Drug Enforcement Administration is using its license plate reader program not only to track drivers’ locations, but also to photograph these drivers and their passengers, according to newly disclosed records obtained by the ACLU via a Freedom of Information Act request.”

    • The libertarian in me says this is wrong on so many levels….being able to track my travels at whim is in violation of my 4th, 5th and 14th amendments, freedom of association, and freedom to travel without intrusion.There are times I think the ACLU is totally bonkers, but lately I find they are at least making sense.

  2. Reported by Vice: “The footage, obtained by the Baltimore Sun, is one of at least three videos shot by witnesses of Gray’s April 12 arrest. At least 16 surveillance cameras set up around the city also captured the events that led Gray, 25, to sustain a severed spine and crushed voice box.”

  3. A CVS was just robbed in my town 3 days ago not that far from my neighborhood…they have NOT released the video, which the police in the past usually have, so makes me wonder if she (the person was female) knew where the camera was and avoided it….We also are having a community wide outdoor art exhibit for the summer, several of the exhibits have already been vandalized, so no in my town there is not a camera on every corner and no one got a cell phone of the robbery, she passed a note to the pharmacy staff saying she was armed and a list of what she wanted. When I worked for them, the panic button was somewhere inaccessible, Time off to de stress from this trauma…..not what employees who have experienced this have told me.

  4. Considering there is a camera on every corner, and one in every cell phone, I find it hard to believe that people get away with robbing pharmacies. Is the DEA turning a blind eye to these burglaries so that pharmacies will be on their side of the drug war?

  5. All of these pharmacy employees are likely to have PTSD from all the burglary trauma.

    Looks like you’re going to need some medical marijuana.

  6. so they took his diazepams and his valiums? but seriously, what pharmacist talks like that? and you wonder why people call bullshit on you so much.

    • So. Really. Watch the video. That pharmacist really did say that. No wonder people don’t listen to you.
      You don’t think things through before putting your foot in your mouth.

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