Schedule C Drugs Confiscated

[Guest guest]

If you'd like to know how the government is wasting your tax money,

at least in the greater Los Angeles area, read this: The VA

District Hospital in Santa , has a huge pharmacy which mails

drugs all over tarnation to veterans. This makes the pharmacy's

work faster and saves everyone from having to make a trip to pick up

meds. Many men have been put on testosterone replacement therapy by

MD's.

The shipment of this stuff, which went out to who knows how

many people, was confiscated because it is Schedule C. This

required the VA to go down (the pharmacist didn't say which

department, but I'd venture a guess it was the local DEA) and get

all of it released. When we called to find out why we'd gotten the

syringes but not the testosterone cypionate, the pharmacist said they were

about at their wits end over this, as the DEA had confiscated EVERY

Schedule C medication they'd sent out in late December. The reason

they didn't confiscate the syringes (a highly prized commodity to

say the least) is because they are not scheduled, even though,

unlike insulin syringes, they must be dispensed by prescription.

What this did was cause the VA to have to re-send all these meds

(and some people who are getting Schedule C meds could be in a lot

of pain without them). The drugs, which should have been received

just after Christmas, will now not be received by any recipient

until probably the end of next week. So not only do these veterans

who need their medication not have it, but it cost the taxpayers

double the cost to mail it out. Is this the way we treat those

citizens who sacrificed to keep our country free?

Like Mel's post on the poor treatment of pain in this country, this

sort of thing fits right into that category. Every time we go to

the VA, we see a lot of people who are in a lot of pain. Jim has

been very fortunate to be receiving excellent care at the Pain

Clinic, which is dispensing some very strong medication to many of

their patients. Many of these people come in to LA from far away.

You always hear them telling the clerks that they have to be out

front by such and such a time to catch their buses (to the San

Joaquin Valley, etc.) by a certain time. These people need their

medications mailed to them without interference. It's pretty

obvious they're not just taking this stuff for no good reason.

The reasoning behind the confiscation was because the DEA (or

whomever it was) suddenly decided that they need to have signatures

for these medications and that they need to be verified. Say what?!

You mean to tell me that some guy's wife can't sign for his

Morphine? I can understand their concern about these medications

falling into the wrong hands, but why not just tell the VA this and

say, " From now on . . . " But to confiscate this stuff and tie it

up for two weeks? And not tell them? Just let them find out

because people start to call wondering where their prescriptions

are? Pardon the rant, but this is where my patience ends.

Rosemary