How much hassle do I HAVE to endure from my pharmacist before I get to bitch?(schedule IIdrugs)

In My Humble Opinion
1

I have adult ADHD. I have been taking stimulant medications for almost 10 years. I take very high doses. I switch back-and-forth between different kinds. I have always had completely legitimate prescriptions from my completely legitimate psychiatrists. (I have had two over this last decade).

I understand that Adderall is being incredibly abused.
I understand that there are procedures to try and reduce said abuse, and that pharmacists have legal requirements to do and not do certain things as part of this effort.

But I also understand that I have been filling the same prescriptions month after month, year after year, at exactly the same pharmacy. It seems to me there comes a point when it is nothing less than intrusive for a pharmacist to make me (and more to the point, my ride) wait an extra half hour to an hour while he or she questions my doctor about prescriptions which, again, are the same prescriptions I have been filling for years.

All this to say that I have kind of reached my limit and I want to write a letter to Costco and say look back off look at my records stop torturing me it’s uncool it’s unnecessary give me a fucking break…

I also tremendously frustrated by the fact that they are adhering to some stupid rule about letting me know when I call whether they can fill my prescription. I don’t own a car, I have to get somebody to give me a ride, or I have to spend money on a ride, or I have to bicycle 10 miles, to find out that you don’t have my medication in stock? That’s just fucking cruel. I gave you my name, you have records going back years, I am not some criminal hoping to knock you over for your drugs… Just tell me whether you can fill my fucking prescription or not.

I am in California. Can anyone tell me what pharmacists really can and cannot do under the law, versus a particular companies decisions about how much of a pain in the ass they want to be?

2

I don’t know about California. My brother was a pharmacist in Oregon and someone calling and asking for any scheduled drug was sort of a red flag. They might have SAID they had a prescription, but until you walk in with the actual prescription they don’t know. The pharmacists (and often my brother was working in the pharmacy alone) don’t have the resources to check if this is really the person or if it’s someone contemplating the next place to steal drugs from.

Pharmacists have a lot of accounting and a lot of restrictions. Most of them are not real happy about it but then, they don’t want to lose their jobs.

3

I’m on Adderall for ADD, and I don’t get hassled by my pharmacist - I just have to show my ID when I pick up my meds.

But then, this is Georgia, where it’s legal to take your guns into a bar, church or college campus. We clearly have a more … relaxed … attitude to public health hazards.

4

Does not your doc have access an electronic prescription setup? When I need a refill, I leave a message with his nurse and she calls in the prescription, even the level II one. Then I pick it up in the next couple of days.

5

Switch to a different pharmacy?

6

Sounds like your pharmacist has delusions of being a DEA agent or something. Go elsewhere. Someplace closer to your house so you don’t need that car you don’t have, if possible.

(I realize sometimes go elsewhere isn’t possible, if not, well, grin and bear it)

7

Bar? Maybe.
Church? Maybe.
College Campus? Never.

Thanks for playing, though.

I’d try a small, privately owned pharmacy if I were you.

8

I think the DEA recently stepped up enforcement on prescriptions for opiods, requiring pharmacists to take greater steps to verify scripts and limit the amounts dispensed. I wonder if those new regulations also apply to other commonly abused medicines?

9

I’d go to a different pharmacy - I use CVS and they give me no problems with adderall. I use them for everything - and have been going there for years.

Having to keep being checked up on is a little ridiculous. I understand verifying the script, but ADHD doesn’t go away like pain will. If you’ve been diagnosed with ADHD and given a script by a doctor - and it helps you - you will likely be on it forever.

And changing to ritalin or straterra is pretty common.

You might want to make sure you aren’t using cash - as this is also a flag they look for.

10

Can’t change, at least not at the moment. I pay cash, and Costco is VASTLY cheaper than any other pharmacy.

11

Church? Yes, if the congregation allows it.

Bar? Yes.

College campus? In certain areas, yes.

State parks? Yes.

Grocery stores? Yes.

There’s a reason we dubbed it the “Guns Everywhere” law. And a reason we had the highest gun deaths per capita in the nation last year. But thanks for playing.

12

Please forgive me for exiting the topic and focusing on bad information. I’m fighting ignorance here…
USA Today, or any newspaper for that matter, is a poor source of factual information regarding gun laws. (Liberal bias and all.)

While the new bills signed into law in 2014 are sarcastically referred to as “guns everywhere” laws, this is not the case. I said “maybe” to bars and churches because of possible restrictions by management that you (SMV) correctly point out.

Neither you nor I may carry a gun to a school campus and stroll around. The exception to the exclusionary zone is if you are picking up or dropping off a student.

The following code section was edited for parts not germane to this discussion.
The full code section may be found here.

O.C.G.A. § 16-11-127.1 (2014)

§ 16-11-127.1. Carrying weapons within school safety zones, at school functions, or on a bus or other transportation furnished by a school
(3) “School safety zone” means in or on any real property or building owned by or leased to:

  (A) Any public or private elementary school, secondary school, or local board of education and used for elementary or secondary education; and

  (B) Any public or private technical school, vocational school, college, university, or other institution of postsecondary education.

(b) (1) Except as otherwise provided in subsection (c) of this Code section, it shall be unlawful for any person to carry to or to possess or have under such person’s control while within a school safety zone or at a school function, or on a bus or other transportation furnished by a school any weapon or explosive compound, other than fireworks the possession of which is regulated by Chapter 10 of Title 25.

(c) **The provisions of this Code section shall not apply to:
**
(7) A person who is licensed in accordance with Code Section 16-11-129 or issued a permit pursuant to Code Section 43-38-10, when such person carries or picks up a student within a school safety zone, at a school function, or on a bus or other transportation furnished by a school or a person who is licensed in accordance with Code Section 16-11-129 or issued a permit pursuant to Code Section 43-38-10 when he or she has any weapon legally kept within a vehicle when such vehicle is parked within a school safety zone or is in transit through a designated school safety zone;

(8) A weapon possessed by a license holder which is under the possessor’s control in a motor vehicle or which is in a locked compartment of a motor vehicle or one which is in a locked container in or a locked firearms rack which is on a motor vehicle which is being used by an adult over 21 years of age to bring to or pick up a student within a school safety zone, at a school function, or on a bus or other transportation furnished by a school, or when such vehicle is used to transport someone to an activity being conducted within a school safety zone which has been authorized by a duly authorized official or local board of education as provided by paragraph (6) of this subsection; provided, however, that this exception shall not apply to a student attending a public or private elementary or secondary school;

So, while we may “bring” a gun on campus while dropping little Tiffany off at school, we may not carry said gun around, nor even remove it from our vehicle.

Some may call this semantics; I call it accuracy.

In a very good articleby Georgia Public Broadcasting, Gov. Deal specifically signed the two relevant bills in a particular order, so that campus carry would not be legal.
That our major pro 2-A group in Georgia is still fighting for campus carry should add credence to my statement.
We don’t have campus carry in Georgia.

13

I don’t suppose there’s another Costco location in your area?

14

Or Costco mail-order pharmacy?

15

There was some interesting debate in Virginia recently over concealed carry on campus here. The thing was that, on most campuses, it was legal in a criminal law sense to carry on a public university campus (since they were not indicated as an excluded zone in the law), but carrying without explicit permission from the school was a disciplinary infraction at most schools. Which led to the ironic observation that while it was perfectly fine for random people to just wander around campus armed and the school can’t do a blessed thing about it, register for just one class and it’s off to Dean Smelly’s office with you for punishment.

16

If you can’t change from your current pharmacy, then I would ask to talk to the pharmacist. If you’ve been going to the same place for years, there is no reason for them to treat you that way. Yes, you do have to hand carry the prescription in for this class of med, but they can tell you over the phone whether it’s in stock. That’s silliness.

I would also recommend CVS. For these meds (the newer ones) there are often rx programs that will help subsidize costs to a fixed amount, so the pharmacy won’t matter. I don’t know if you have researched that.

17

AFAIK, you can’t mail order controlled substances.

18

Costco is a huge store with a huge pharmacy. Do you think maybe the pharmacists there are just following a written procedure, regardless of whether they remember you or not? Imagine how much trouble they could get in if they were sloppy in checking prescriptions and a DEA sting or something managed to purchase a bunch of drugs?

19

What honks me is that most of us have to go through a variation of this to buy fuggin’ Sudafed.

20

What, you mean sign for it at the pharmacy desk? For an item that I’ve never found to be out of stock at any halfway decent pharmacy?