Fears for chemists over drug thieves

Press, 28 July 1987, Page 6

Fears for chemists over drug thieves

PA Wellington It is only a matter of time before chemist shop staff are injured or killed by drug thieves, says the executive director of the Pharmacy Guild, Mr Bruce Jenkin.

“Pharmacies are being laid seige by people either breaking in at night or the weekend, or just holding the proprietors up. We can’t continue operating in this way,” he said. Last week a chemist shop in a Wellington suburb was held up by an armed robber seeking drugs, and drugs were stolen from wards in Wellington Hospital. The police said they were , worried that desperation for drugs by addicts was reaching dangerous levels, and it could be linked to a lack of imported drugs available on the street.

“We are getting frankly desperate about this situation,” Mr Jenkin said.

Pharmacy burglaries and hold-ups, and also vandalism, had increased significantly in the last few months. The problem shifted from place to place. The guild would ask the police how to tackle the problem at source, and would also seek sterner penalties for drug thieves, Mr Jenkin said.

The crime rise increased the cost of security measures, and increased the stress faced by staff who feared violence in the daily course of their business. “In Australia one or two pharmacists have been killed in these situations. I think it is only a matter of time before we have a serious injury, even a death, here,” he said. The crime rate also coloured some pharmacists’ views on participating in the needle swap programme designed to keep A.I.D.S. from spreading

among drug addicts. The pharmacists assumed that the thieves were themselves addicts. Canterbury chemists had been reducing stocks of drugs, and having them delivered on demand by security firms. The experiment had been running for some time, but it was too early to evaluate it accurately, Mr Jenkin

said. The system was also logistically tricky, expensive, and meant customers would have to return to the chemist at least an hour after dropping off a prescription. The company which insures guild member pharmacies is also worried about rising crime trends. Mr Rod Mead, of General Accident Insurance, said that if it continued, chemists might have to look at fortifying the inside of shops, especially the area where drugs were dispensed.