Phil Aurbach wrote on March 03, 2009 10:36 AM: to:
NITA--Ms Sanchez and her babies have lost their father. Mr. Martinez had his leg crushed. All we asked is that a jury of people like you decide if, after State notice that she was a prescription abuser, should the pharmacist have called her doctor? Isn't that reasonable in our society. That a jury of people in this community decide whether a phone call would have saved a life instead of a rule that pharmacists are never liable?
DRUGFREE- The task force sends a letter itemizing Ms Copening's 4500 Loritab and the pharmacist says no drugs til I speak with the doctor? Is that unreasonable to save a life? Ms Copening could be a cancer patient and needed that volume of pain killers. But it is irresponsible to toss the notice in the trash and not make a note in her prescription records at that store. People don't have a special relationship with their gas station attendants. People trust their pharmacists. Obviously you have formed your opinion about attorneys without any glance at the other side of the story. The attorneys that make money in these cases litigate for years with no income. Nothing coming in to pay rent, salaries, supplies filing fees, expert witnesses. The person of average income could not pay the attorneys hourly rate for all of this work. Take away contingency fees and you deny access to the courts to 85% of the people of the United States. Large corporations have a lot of money to pay attorneys to keep from having a jury decide a case. If you question jurys, you need to read the declaration of independence. http://www.ushistory.org/Declaration/document/index.htm

Apples to Oranges wrote on March 02, 2009 05:35 PM: Drug Free, your comparison is erroneous. In the instance of gas stations selling more gas to a drunk driver, it would only be comparable if the driver were impaired by the gas. Here, pharmacies sold drugs to someone they knew was a potential abuser. And the argument is that they should have at least notified the physicians so the physician could make the decision whether to keep prescribing the medication. And if it weren't for the "subhumanoid attorney" (as you called him) the family of the victim might not receive anything.

Obummer wrote on March 02, 2009 05:33 PM: This case is a perfect example as to why we need to allow the prescribing pharmacist to decide independent of the doctor as to whether or not the patient needs the medication specified on the prescription. The needs of the patient should not be allowed to override the conscious of the pharmacist... Ever.

If the pharmacist suspects drug abuse or possibly even a minor child looking for a morning after pill they should be able to refuse the script presented to them for those or any other reason.

Timothy Leary wrote on March 02, 2009 05:09 PM: That's at least 12 hydrocodone pills a day according to the story. I agree that pharmcists are not liable. However, cases like this will scare the pharmacies into denying medications and sooner or later the "nanny-state" will be in charge. Already doctors are under numerous strains from insurance companies. Just think if they have to get every prescription authorized by the government.

DrugFree wrote on March 02, 2009 04:53 PM: The actual Controlled Substance Task Force Report states at the bottom:For Informational Purposes.
This doesn't sound like a duty to me. The Administrative Rules & Statutes that define negligence of pharmacists do not include drug shoppers.
The behavior of most drug shoppers are that they will fill a prescription after the doctors office has closed with no way to verify the authenticity of the prescription.
If a pharmacist is to identify a person trying to gain a narcotic through fraud, metro is not interested in responding to the call, nor is DPS.
Nevada lacks the enforcement ability even if it were a duty which places the onus directly on the pharmacist to make a judgment call which amounts to practicing medicine which is prohibited under current rules.
This would be similar to suing a gas station for selling a repeat drunk driver fuel for his car & he later kills someone. His name was in the paper as being arrested for DUI. Does this notification constitute a duty to the station owner.
Once again, a sleazy subhumanoid attorney trying to get rich off the true victims of this crash.
If the pharmacies deserve any blame, it is the fact that they have the pharmacists crank out prescriptions at an unsafe rate of filling while making them man a drive through window and creating glorified sales clerks rather than have them focus on professional aspects of doing their jobs as pharmacists.

nita wrote on March 02, 2009 03:44 PM: It's always somebody else's fault---never the person that did the crime...