370,000 narcotic pills stolen by hospital employees, sold to dealers

[rainbow4321]

370,000....in a year's time.

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/041110dnmetparklanddrugs.404e8fd.html

Federal authorities are investigating a years-long series of drug thefts at Parkland Health & Hospital System that put hundreds of thousands of painkillers and tranquilizers in the hands of street dealers, The Dallas Morning News has learned

The Texas State Board of Pharmacy, meanwhile, is considering fining or otherwise punishing the taxpayer-funded hospital system and three pharmacists. Board documents obtained by The News say Parkland's outpatient pharmacies and the pharmacists failed to keep proper records or develop sufficient plans for preventing drug theft, as required by law.

State regulators' records say that at the hospital system's pharmacy on Elam Road, in southeast Dallas, more than a third of the hydrocodone painkiller tablets disappeared over a nine-month period. And 60 percent of the tranquilizer diazepam – better known by the brand name Valium – vanished in one year at a pharmacy near Parkland's main treatment center on Harry Hines Boulevard, in northwest Dallas.

In total, about 370,000 tablets could not be accounted for during the survey period, pharmacy board records said. The black-market value of that loss would be roughly $1 million, according to Justice Department estimates of the street value of such pills.

[Joanne98]

1. If they just made them LEGAL they wouldn't have these problems!

[eilen]

2. Inside job- had to be a pharm employee

those are controlled LEGAL medications. We have to count them everytime we take one for a patient and record how many are left.

[rainbow4321]

3. It was multiple pharmacy workers

Two of whom are getting probation after pleading guilty

[Lyric]

4. More crime that could easily be prevented with legalization.

Drug War = FAIL