Pain pill crackdown hurts cancer patients, including retired St. Pete officer
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. (WFLA) – A state and federal crackdown on prescription pills is now hurting patients never meant to be impacted: those fighting terrible pain from cancer.
Gary Gibson and his wife Kathie know this all to well. He is a retired St. Petersburg police officer, now with stage 4 colon cancer. After a recent surgery, Gibson was in what he calls “the worst pain of my life.”
READ MORE: Experts: Pain pill crackdown will make cut-off patients turn to heroin
Kathie rushed out to a Publix pharmacy and was shocked when she tried to fill his pain pill prescription. The pharmacist turned her away, saying she didn’t have the medication on hand. She offered no guidance to Kathie on where she should go to find her husband’s medication.
“She absolutely thought I was a drug addict,” Kathie Gibson said.
Gary, the longest serving homicide detective of all time in St. Petersburg, understands the need for the crackdown on pill abuse. He has seen first hand what happens when pills get in the wrong hands.
READ MORE: Crackdown on prescription drug abuse hurts pain management patients
But he can’t believe this crackdown is hurting him – in his darkest hour.
“I didn’t even want to take the medication,” Gary Gibson said. “My doctors had to convince me. But I’ve never been in that much pain. It’s terrible.”
Pharmacist after pharmacist turned Kathie away as she tried to fill her husband’s script, saying either they didn’t have the medication or doubted her husband’s prescription was legitimate. It took four hours of pharmacy shopping to finally buy the medication.
“It’s not supposed to affect people who have cancer, but it obviously does,” Kathie Gibson said.
The Gibsons are yet another example of an unintended consequence of a state and federal crackdown on pill mills. Pharmacies are given dramatically smaller batches of pills, and the government is keeping an eye on who gets them. But regulations were never intended to hurt people like Gary.
Sarah Steinhardt is a lawyer, a pharmacist and a professor at the University of South Florida. The crackdown, she said, has led to millions in fines issued to pharmacies, and now pharmacists are afraid to fill prescriptions out of fear of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“There’s the pharmacist apprehension of not wanting to fill the script just in case it’s invalid and then there’s the issue that they might not even have enough access themselves to have enough medication for the legitimate medication,” Steinhardt said.
It will take time, but she thinks things are getting better. The state pharmacy board and the DEA recently issued new guidelines for pharmacists.
“If it is a valid prescription, there should be (no) problem filling it,” she said.
Filed under: General Problems
Please tell me where it is getting better, because in my area, NOTHING has changed & is actually getting worse!!!
i hate to say it at least it took only 4hrs
Sure, it’s getting better. Right! As long as the DEA is present in the practice of medicine, it will do nothing but get worse.
What’s next, have a DEA agent on duty at every pharmacy who fills controlled substances?????
The DEA, CDC and FDA are going to end up killing more Americans than overdoses. Not to mention that because of these agencies actions cartels and drug dealers are coming up with some creative but deadly ways to distribute their products and for a much bigger profit to them.
This ALPHABET SOUP must be stopped and stopped soon!
Vote these idiots out!!! We’re paying their salaries .. only to have them torture us! Wake up, America!!!
Unfortunately… the people on the Board of Pharmacy are normally APPOINTED by the GOVERNOR
well that sucks steve