Just watched the Netflix series "The Pharmacist" and highly recommend it. It's the story of a middle class family man, who receives a shocking notification from the police that his son has been murdered in the notorious "9th Ward" of New Orleans, during an apparent attempt to buy narcotics. The father's devotion to his son enables him to play "detective", when NOPD fails to find the killer. Learning the stories of other victims of addiction, his story evolves as he and associates unravel a complex tragedy tearing apart communities nationwide. Well worth watching, if for no other reason to see how dedicated individuals CAN make a difference in their community.

Wife and I watched that a few weeks back. It was really 2 separate stories, IMO, first how he caught his sons killer then how he helped expose what was going on with pill mills and the drug manufacturers. It hit really close to home as I saw many of the same things while working retail pharmacy, starting in 2003. It was frustrating to get anything done to those prescribers. The Board of Healing Arts here in MO was a joke at the time. Same prescriber that we reported went before them at least 3 times and they “found” nothing wrong with his prescribing. It wasn’t until we were able to get DEA involved that something finally happened. He eventually fled the country to avoid charges and jail time. Every store I worked at had at least one doctor we had to watch out for and do our due diligence before dispensing. It got to the point we’d quit filling prescriptions for those physicians. So glad I left retail pharmacy.

quote:

Well worth watching, if for no other reason to see how dedicated individuals CAN make a difference in their community.

I agree wholeheartedly but if his efforts and actions actually approached a level anywhere near those depicted in the series, and I have no reason to believe that they didn't, that difference came with an extremely high price tag. The most frustrating part for me was that he was essentially blown off as an outsider and a kook by several different publicly-funded agencies which are supposed to protect the public in two vastly different areas.

Don't fuck with pharmacists.

This lady comes into a drug store and goes back to the pharmacy.

Lady: I want to buy some Potassium cyanide.

Rxer: Madam, that's a deadly poison and I can't sell it to you.

(Lady hands him a photo of the pharmacist's wife in bed with her husband.)

Rxer: Oh. You didn't tell me you had a prescription.