I've been having a lot of insomnia lately, so my doctor prescribed a drug called clonazepam (brand name: Klonopin). The prescription was sent to the Walmart pharmacy by electronic magic and when it was ready I went to the pharmacy to pick it up.
I've had problems with Walmart before. See my post titled Walmart Fail and tell me if it makes any sense to you. But this time, my problem was with Walmart's drugstore.
I've been buying prescription drugs from Walmart Pharmacy for about twenty years and I've never had a problem—until this past Friday. They phoned me to let me know my clonazepam was ready to be picked up. So I drove to the pharmacy and went in. There was no line so I was first in line and a young black man waited on me. I told him my name and he checked his computer and he said he needed to see ID. I said, "What ID?"
He repeated, "I need to see your ID!"
And I repeated, "What ID?"
We went back and forth.
You see, I have lots of IDs in my wallet. I have my drivers license, my social security card, my Medicare Health Insurance ID card, my Anthem Medicare supplement ID card, my Humana Rx plan ID card (it even says member ID on the card!). Because I was buying medicine, I thought that maybe they wanted to see my Humana ID card, or possibly my Medicare ID card. I wasn't sure. That's why I asked, "What ID?" But the young black man kept repeating, "I need to see your ID!" It was a stalemate. He stared at me and I stared back at him. Then he turned away and said something to another clerk, to the effect of "I don't want to wait on this guy. You wait on him."
So another clerk stepped forward. This clerk was a young white fellow, thin and somewhat taller than me. He said, "I need to see your driver's license." Now we were getting somewhere.
As I pulled out my wallet, I asked the fellow, "Why do you need to see my driver's license?"
"Because this drug is a schedule one drug, so I have to check your identity."
"Schedule one?" I thought. "Wow, that's really up there."
The clerk scrutinized my license and handed it back. I paid, and he pointed to an older gentleman at the end of the counter. I walked over to him and he handed me my purchase with a smile. This was the first person at the pharmacy that had greeted me with a smile. I thanked him and went to my Jeep and drove home.
I got on my computer and entered the DEA's website and looked up schedule one. This is what the DEA website said:
Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Some examples of Schedule I drugs are: heroin, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), marijuana (cannabis), 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy), methaqualone, and peyote.
Holy cow! Do I really want to take this medicine? It has no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Is clonazepam really a schedule 1 drug, like the Walmart pharmacy clerk said, or are the Walmart clerks just trying to play a joke on an old man? No, Walmart clerks would never do that. I'd better play it safe and dump these pills into my kitchen garbage can. I don't want to swallow anything as dangerous as the drugs that the DEA lists for schedule one.
Then, I decided to see what the DEA said about clonazepam. Here is what the DEA said:
Schedule IV
Schedule IV drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs with a low potential for abuse and low risk of dependence. Some examples of Schedule IV drugs are: Xanax, Soma, Darvon, Darvocet, Valium, Ativan, Talwin, Ambien, Tramadol.
Another section of the DEA website said:
Schedule IV Controlled Substances
Substances in this schedule have a low potential for abuse relative to substances in Schedule III.
Examples of Schedule IV substances include: alprazolam (Xanax®), carisoprodol (Soma®), clonazepam (Klonopin®), clorazepate (Tranxene®), diazepam (Valium®), lorazepam (Ativan®), midazolam (Versed®), temazepam (Restoril®), and triazolam (Halcion®).
Hmm.The DEA says that clonazepam has a low potential for abuse relative to Schedule 3. There is also a Schedule 5 that contains addictive things like ice cream sandwiches and pumpkin pie, which I will admit can be quite addictive and probably more so than clonazepam. But still, the Feds haven't outlawed ice cream and pie. Yet. But give them time.
Now, what to do about Walmart. Should I let them get away with telling people that a relatively harmless drug is the next thing to heroin? Or should I go to the drugstore and waste my time discussing this with a manager?
(Heavy thoughts in progress. Please wait.)
Okay, I think I'll see if a manager wants to listen to me. Better yet, I'll publish this now, and if I make any progress with a Walmart manager, I'll return and post his comments and actions. It's only fair.
It's the next day. Acutally, it's three days later, because the first two days were rainy. I went to Walmart Pharmacy at 9AM and talked with an employee named Michael about what happened. I tried to tell the story as accurately as I could and not to make myself out as the "injured party" seeking justice.
As Michael described it, when picking up a "scheduled drug", one does have to show a driver's license. But he said that someone could pick up the drug for me, in which case she would show her driver's license. It doesn't have to be me who picks up the drug, the government just wants to be able to track who is picking up the medicine so that the same person can't go from pharmacy to pharmacy with the same (bogus) prescription and purchase large quantities of the drug. The incident shouldn't have happened, but I did what I could to square things away and get some understanding, and that's all I can do without having a time machine.
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