A Frightening New Problem

It’s no news that prescription drug abuse has increased by leaps and bounds over the past few years. Not a day goes by without a story about bringing in your unused prescriptions, or about doctors giving out too many prescriptions, or teens overdosing during a pill party. Prescription drug abuse is a horror that affects all ages and all economic levels of society, as older people have been known to overdose as well.It’s been said that there are more people in the United States addicted to prescription drugs than to heroin and cocaine and marijuana all put together.

Some of the stories focus on break-ins into homes, and a few have centered around the necessity to add safes and alarm systems to pharmacies. An addict, unfortunately, will do almost anything to get what his body says he needs.

But on Friday, July 9, the terrors associated with illegal prescription drug abuse increased. A pharmacist and a pharmacy tech were held up at gunpoint around 10 pm during their evening shift at a CVS store at Dekalb Pike and Skippack Pike in Whitpain Township, an area that is considered a very good neighborhood. I myself have stopped into that store around that time of night on several occasions, and I am quite glad that I wasn’t there on that Friday.

According to the Whitpain Township, PA detectives, a white male in his mid-20’s wearing black rim glasses and a brown hat went up to the pharmacy counter in the back of the store and pulled out a revolver. He set a black and red duffle bag on the counter and demanded Oxycontin and Percocet and other narcotics and all of the money in the register. The employees complied, and the man ran out without causing injury beyond the fright that he had caused.

Police have a fairly good picture of the man from the store camera and they are searching. In the meantime, though, it’s a scary thought that a person with a gun might threaten harm to any pharmacy for his own greed and gain.