DTZNuff
Board Addict
Reged: 11/16/02
Posts: 312
Loc: B.F.E.
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What if a person was to rummage through the garbage of pharmacies? I have heard of it being done. Would that be strange? I wonder if you could find expired meds etc....Also since it is trash, you can't get in trouble going through it could you?
Any thoughts?
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 Serenity Now, Insanity Later!
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oldnavy170
Board Addict
Reged: 05/12/03
Posts: 357
Loc: New York
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WOW, this is very interesting. That has never come to my mind. Are there meds just thrown out in the normal trash? I would of never thought that. Curious to what others have to say about this subject.
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Trampy
Pooh-Bah
Reged: 04/03/02
Posts: 1261
Loc: Southwest U.S.
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Quote:
What if a person was to rummage through the garbage of pharmacies? I have heard of it being done. Would that be strange? I wonder if you could find expired meds etc....Also since it is trash, you can't get in trouble going through it could you?
Any thoughts?
Well, some cities have laws against going through someone else's garbage. Most places, though, it's legal, and it's a common investigatory technique for law enforcement if it's legal for anyone to do. If there's a law against it (or if the law does not exempt them), law enforcement would need a search warrant to go through someone's garbage.
Even if there's no "garbage law," dumpster diving in a pharmacy's trash could be considered illegal if it's seen as an attempt to illegally obtain controlled substances.
But, yes, pharmacies throw away expired drugs and bottles of liquids that are not fully empty.
Trampy
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Your mileage may vary ...
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saraba
Member
Reged: 01/27/03
Posts: 185
Loc: west coast
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I have read that people find old paper rx's in the drugstore's trash. Then they take them to another pharmacy and get them filled. It happened at a bunch of Sav-On's a while ago. I also read that they look at bottles (in the trash) to see if there are refills, then they fill them.
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Sky_Queen
Fly Girl
Reged: 12/03/02
Posts: 1985
Loc: Texas
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Interesting Trampy. I just assumed that pharmacies destroyed stuff like that so people couldn't get their hands on them. Hmmmm...
Now DTZNuff - please tell me what your gif is?? Night of the Living Dead? Yikes!
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jadi
Old Hand
Reged: 11/02/02
Posts: 487
Loc: USA
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Off topic, but I have to concur...that gif gives me nightmares so I try not to look at it! You have a lot of great things to say, but it's hard for me to read your posts because that thing is SCARY  !
As far as the trash can goes...I guess it depends on how the dumpsters are set up. If several businesses share the same dumpster...as they do with my pharm, how could they prove you were looking for meds? I'm sure it would be fairly obvious, but how would they prove it? This just made me think of something...the store I'm opening shares a dumpster with MY pharmacy...hmmm...
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(alias: MELLO)
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scissorhands
Member
Reged: 06/04/03
Posts: 168
Loc: Hell
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I worked for CVS (when it was Revco) Pharmacy Warehouse, when a lot of the stores went out of business we got all their RXS back...We had to go through everything, count and record it and then take it to a huge trash compactor and push a big red button. It was one of the hardest jobs I ever had to do, destroy perfectly good narcotics and meds...CVS would have people go through their dumpsters at night and catch them, then they had this gigantic compactor installed and we had to put everything in it, prepscription meds, cosmetics, CD's, diapers, etc...Employees weren't allowed to get anything. What really made me sick was that some really deserving families could have used all this merchandise. Like I said, it would make you sick...
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Baseball is wrong...Man with four balls cannot walk!
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PrivateRealm
Threadhead
Reged: 03/18/03
Posts: 927
Loc: usa
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I think that that is a prett good questin, but all of us DB people, be watching out in the news now for a rash of drug store dumpster lootings It seems though, that if substances are controlled that the government would have a legal "way" of disposing of them to help the "controlled" part. But, yeah, they probably are just tossed in with everything else, I'm not sure though.
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KeriAnne~~~
"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take - but by the moments that take our breath away."
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kittykatbone
Member
Reged: 06/20/03
Posts: 150
Loc: City of lost Angels
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as far as i know, the pharmacys don't have to account for every broken, chipped, or powdered pill they receive in each bottle. they simply inform the supplier of the approx quantity that was damaged for credit. i'm not sure if they have a system of destroying the unsellable ones, or if it is up to the managing pharmacist to dispose of them.
i could think of a few good ways!  the bigger pharmacies probably have strict procedures to follow when disposing of them. but the independent & smaller stores..... who knows???
HAPPY DIVING 
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some days you're the windshield, some days you're the bug
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okiedad777
Member
Reged: 01/12/03
Posts: 137
Loc: Oklahoma
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A few years ago, a Federal law made trash "public property" meaning that if you threw it away, anyone could claim it, BUT I don't yhink that applies to pharms...I could be wrong.
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Jimbo
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rex
Enthusiast
Reged: 01/29/03
Posts: 223
Loc: U.S.
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A few years back, a man was taking digging through Eckerd Drugstore's trash cans and getting the following information: Patients name and drug precscribed. He would then go to the patient's house, knock on the door and say, "I work at Eckerds. The drugs we gave you are being recalled (or they were expired, dangerous, or something like that). Give me the drugs and we will bring you a good batch of drugs." Some poor gullible people actually gave the guy their hydro (that was the drug he was after). The guy was eventually caught.
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labdoc
Stranger
Reged: 07/22/03
Posts: 17
Loc: TX
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Most reputable pharmacies dispose of their outdated meds through special services that contract with the pharmacy. They are destroyed or neutralized by various methods. If you were to find something like an undestroyed med in a dumpster I'd run, fast, it's either a set up or something that could cause some serious effects if ingested. The Level IV I worked at incinerated meds at extremely high temps and then destroyed the ashes. Of course those were some really deadly chemicals. I hope no one gets any ideas from this silliness. I know the people here on DB are a pretty savvy and intelligent bunch, but there's always one. Be careful, it's dunb out there. All the best thoughts to all of you!
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Men who would forfeit a mere measure of freedom for a mere measure of security, deserve neither freedom mor security -- Ben Franklin'
Be careful, it's dumb out there. -- Tim Dorsey
Labdoc
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Moirane
Stranger
Reged: 08/15/03
Posts: 7
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I used to do this quite often. I found. . .
-several bottles of almost empty to half full bottles of Tussionex (this was the best find)
-crushed Soma ( I remember that one batch I got was partically soaked in coffee, still good though )
-crushed Lortab ( more like broken, most were namebrand )
The thing about finding partially crushed or broken throw-outs is that when you would find one, you were sure to find many
( not so damaged that you could not ID it though )
-various broken benzodiazepines
-lots of pharmaceutical pens and promotional stuff
It really got to be an adventure and I was doing it too much, I finally stopped. But yes, in a nutshell, they do throw away goodies. I made the mistake of telling a less intellegent friend about the idea and he ended up getting caught. He is going trought the legal process right now, yes it's illegal.
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J_Drei
Journeyman
Reged: 10/06/02
Posts: 85
Loc: Wash DC area
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Dumpster diving is illegal. Dumpster diving is a term of art for drug users who go through the trash bins of pharmacies. At the very least the cops can arrest you for trespassing since it is private property. And once they detain you for trespassing, if they find anything that seems like you were scavaging for drugs, then they can bust you for posessing a script not intended for your use.
You'll notice that in cities, most CVS/Rite Aid/Walgreen type pharmacies will either have locked gates that surround there dumpster bins and/or cameras that watch their dumpsters.
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alphaman
Member
Reged: 06/07/03
Posts: 166
Loc: pittsburgh
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I know from a friend of mine who is a pharmacist any large number of narcotics that have to be disposed of. The DEA comes and picks it up. You would probley be safer buying off the street, then rummaging through a trash can anyway JMO...heath
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Never Be so Open-Minded that your Brains Fall Out
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