PRESCRIPTION ABUSE:

For pharmacy techs, drugs easy to steal

Low-paid workers have easy access to pills and little cause to fear prosecution

By Marshall Allen (contact)

Monday, Aug. 25, 2008 | 2 a.m.

59,770 -- Number of pills stolen by Cambra Nye, a pharmacy technician who worked for a CVS in North Las Vegas.

$42,000 -- Estimated pharmacy value of the pills, which are worth even more on the street.

$8 to $12 -- Hourly wages for technicians, who can sometimes sell stolen pills for $50 each.

Painful Painkillers

Board of Pharmacy

Some of the main suppliers to drug dealers wear white lab coats.

Prescription drugs rival street drugs in popularity among drug abusers and addicts, and much of it is getting on the street through pharmacy technicians, who have the same access to controlled substances as pharmacists.

They’ve even earned a nickname for themselves: “thieving techs.”

Pharmacy Board records show at least a dozen techs were disciplined for theft in 2006 and 2007, stuffing pills in their clothes or creating drug orders with fake names for their friends to buy.

One technician was disciplined for stealing 1,500 pills hydrocodone, better known by the brand names Vicodin, Lorcet and Norco. Another was disciplined for taking 450 hydrocodone pills. Many more are caught stealing handfuls of pills.

The tech responsible for the biggest known theft in Nevada is 37-year-old Cambra Nye, who worked for a CVS pharmacy in North Las Vegas. She confessed in March 2007 to stealing, over about a year, up to 300 bottles of hydrocodone; up to a hundred bottles of Alprazolam, also known as Xanax; up to 10 bottles of Viagra, and more.

In total Nye stole 59,770 pills worth an estimated pharmacy value of $42,000, records show, and a far greater value on the street.

Nye could not be reached for comment, but said in her statement to North Las Vegas police that she stole hundreds of bottles of pills because she felt “betrayed by the company I have worked hard for six years” by being passed up for a promotion.

Nye was sentenced to probation and CVS officials said she is now paying restitution.

CVS officials said they take loss prevention seriously but would not discuss their security efforts.

Most cases are handled by the Pharmacy Board and not criminally prosecuted.

Board officials say their most frequent disciplinary cases involve pharmacy tech thieves, some who have been caught stealing thousands of pills. Much more drug theft goes uncaught, they say.

The state’s Controlled Substance Abuse Task Force discussed the problem during its meeting Friday.

Pharmacy technicians need only a high school education and minimal training, but they perform every function of a pharmacist except counseling a patient or making professional decisions, said Larry Pinson, executive director of the Pharmacy Board. They’re paid from $8 to $12 an hour, but have access to pills that could be worth $50 each on the street.

Pharmacists have also been disciplined for large hauls of drugs. Roger Ly lost his pharmacist’s license after stealing 49,370 hydrocodone pills and 2,990 OxyContin pills during his employment at three Vons pharmacies.

Ly created fraudulent prescriptions for actual patients, which he would then fill and buy for himself by paying the co-pay and billing the patients’ insurance for the balance, according to the complaint filed against him.

At a December 2006 hearing, he said he stole the drugs “to provide them to wealthy young men with whom he played basketball in order to gain entry into their social circle,” the Pharmacy Board complaint said.

Nevada has the highest per capita use of hydrocodone in the nation, according to a Sun analysis of Drug Enforcement Administration data. The state ranks fourth in per capita use of methadone, morphine and oxycodone. And while the use of many street drugs is declining, the use of prescription narcotics is rising exponentially — and with it the rise in fatal overdoses.

In 2007, 258 people died in Clark County of overdoses of prescription narcotics, more than died in motor vehicle accidents. Street drugs such as cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin were involved in 197 fatal overdoses the same year.

It’s impossible to estimate how much of the prescription drug consumption is illicit because there are so many sources of diverting the drugs to the illegal market, said Matt Alberto, deputy chief of investigations for the Nevada Public Safety Department, the lead prescription drug policing agency in the state.

The techs are an ongoing source for the illicit drug market because they can move from job to job, taking a few pills at each place, Alberto said.

Pinson said there are few precautions that can be taken to prevent theft by techs. He said there’s been discussion about requiring the techs, who are registered by the Pharmacy Board, to be licensed, as they are in some other states. A license might weed out some technicians who are unable or unwilling to go through the training and regulation process, he said.

That Pharmacy Board also created a regulation that requires anyone going to a pharmacy technician school to pass a drug test and background check, Ling said. But many of the techs are trained in-house in pharmacies, so the regulation won’t apply to everyone.

Ultimately, the techs either get caught or quit their jobs, Ling said. The problem is that it might take an employer months to catch a tech, he said.

“They can’t get another job — we make sure of that — but the damage has already been done by then,” Ling said.

Discussion: 7 comments so far…

By lvmacp

8/25/08 at 7:18 a.m.

Suggest removal

Every time I've ever had RX for percocet or other such meds, I count the pills in the bottle in front of the pharmacist. Guess what it is always short regardless of where I get it filled. Sometimes only 2 or 3 pills and at times 15-20 pills less that the RX calls for.
Lesson - "always count the pills"
just because the bottle says 60 doesn't mean that many is in there.
By cphtlink

8/25/08 at 8:34 a.m.

Suggest removal

the larger portion of techs are trained, educated, honest, and hard working professionals. Those mentioned in the article are in the minority of the pharmacy world.

In my opinion, this article is unfair to the profession and portrays us a low-paid worker bees who will do anything unscrupulous for a quick buck.

-fred s. CPhT
www.cphtlink.com
By neiman1

8/25/08 at 10:46 a.m.

Suggest removal

Why all the games. If people want to abuse drugs they are going to do it. By making it all illegal we just raise the street value (the profit) and make it more lucrative which brings the gangs and violence. Let adults abuse what they want and get on with the important parts of life. If the profit was gone, the violence and the crime to support the habits would leave with it. Treat the "War on Drugs" like we did Vietnam. Declare Victory and call it off.
By NevadaFive

8/26/08 at 12:20 p.m.

Suggest removal

I'm with lvmacp re: pharmacy techs and their "addiction" to narcotics. Addiction not meaning they are users - but they are suppliers. I, too, counted my narcotic meds right at the counter. Yes, I also have found the bottles short as much as five pills (90 prescribed). After two or three of these "scenes" the head pharmacist agreed to make up the difference, if any, as long as I called him that day after I got home. Ever since every bottle has been exact!! This pharmacy tech theivery has been going on for years. 20 years ago one of my co-workers explained she could get anything without a prescription as her sister was a pharmacy tech. So I ordered 30 Valiums for $30 (1988 prices) and broke the law, I'm sure, but it was that easy. So I am surprised that these pharmacies can still get away with this. I agree to some extent that some narcotic meds should be over-the-counter (21 years min - like booze) - and maybe have some sort of registry. I know that is additional government regulation and bookeeping - but if you are in chronic pain most MD's in Vegas are going to write these scripts anyway.
By pharmtech

8/27/08 at 8:21 p.m.

Suggest removal

I have been a technician for 10 years, certified nationally for 9 years, registered with the Texas State Board of Pharmacy for 4 years, and licensed with the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy for 3.5 years. I KNOW FOR A FACT that I have worked with AT LEAST one PHARMACIST who WAS found to be "diverting" narcotics (the nice way of saying he stole them) BUT WAS ALLOWED TO KEEP HIS JOB on the condition that he would continue to work for that hospital indefinately and was not allowed access to the narcotic vault. What about the NURSES that have been fired, just in the 3 years I've been at my current job, for stealing narcotics? Or the doctors who have their DEA numbers and can have NARCOTICS SENT DIRECTLY TO THEIR HOUSES (at least, in the state of Texas)? Why are technicans targeted?

I don't know who Mr. Allen spoke with, but I have yet to have a job in a pharmacy, reguardless of the state, that did not REQUIRE pre-employement drug screening. When I started working here in Las Vegas, they not only did a urine test, they did a hair test. What does he think they're going to find? If he's right and the "theiving techs" aren't taking the narcotics themselves but instead are supplying them to others at street value a drug screen isn't going to catch anything.

I did not go to any sort of technician school. I was trained on the job, in a state that did not require school to be a technician. HOWEVER, when I applied for my Nevada license, I was told that the state of Nevada DOES require technicians to go to a state approved school, unless they were already registered in another state, in which case, we were grandfathered in. What part of that sounds like there is "only a high school education and minimal training...?"

When do people finally realize that as a technician, I am not ultimately responsible for what is in that prescription bottle? Yes, I may count the pills, sign out what needs to be signed out, and put my initials on it. But, when the trouble starts, it's the pharmacist who is ultimately responsible for the accuracy and accountability of that bottle. And if I was a pharmacist, knowing there was a narcotic in that bottle I'm about to scribble my initials on, you better be ABSOLUTELY sure I'd recount the pills. Even if I trusted the tech implicitly, crap happens. When there are 3 phones ringing, drive through customers, customers at the window, insurance companies and doctor's offices on the phone, I WOULD INSIST that narcotics be recounted.

If you look at the Nevada State Board of Pharmacy's meeting agenda for the July 2nd Board Meeting, you'll find a list of Pharmacists (RPh), Technicians (PT), and Tecnicians in Training (PTT) who are being reviewed for "alleged misconduct, professional competence or physical or mental health." This list can be found at http://bop.nv.gov/Agendas/2008/2008-07-1... If you take a look at the list, you'll find 3 technicians, 1 technician in training and 4 Registered PHARMACISTS.
By cphtlink

8/28/08 at 6:31 a.m.

Suggest removal

us technicians need to push for a national standard. one where only certified techs are allowed to stand behind the bench.

a standard of mandatory continuing education modules.

not only will this weed out the unprofessional thieving techs, it's the only way to ensure the sustainability of this job. Am i going to stick around a job that would max out at $12 an hour? no.

A national standard of educated technicians who possess a minimal of an Associate Degree will give us the respect and living wage we deserve, improve patient care and filling accuracy.

Problem is, the big chains refuse it. They don't want to shell out the money.
By TheTruthof702

12/7/08 at 10:23 p.m.

Suggest removal

I am writing to correct Mr.Allen on a few things. His research should have found that the pharmacy techs have no direct access to any narcotic worth $50 on the street. Only the registered pharmicist have access to narcotics of that value. Also Miss,Nye was never attempted to be contacted by The Sun. Nearly a year prior to the whole incident, Miss, Nye contacted loss prevention's Bradley Brice herself to inform him about the conditions of the particular C.V.S she was working in.The schedule 2 narcotics were laying all over the floor,not inventoried and theft of narcotics was done by all staff.Instead of taking action immediately Mr.Brice waited and confronted Miss,Nye with alligations of theft for all narcotics missing. Instead of throwing fellow co-workers under the bus she accepted all guilt.Miss, Nye was singled out for the theft of all the narcotics simply because she made an attempt to fix the problem by contacting Mr. Brice of Loss Prevention.The theft of Pharmicutical Narcotics has no certain group of employee's to hold responsible.targeting underpaid techs as the culprits is ridiculous. There where and are more Pharmicist's facing alligations of misconduct than Pharmicist Techs.A person with common sense would know Miss Nye would have never been actually working if she was stealing 60,000 pills.These numbers are the result of corrupt pharmacy full of thieving employee's. This statement was written by a close personal friend of Miss Nye. I can arrange The Sun to actually contact her if you would like to write about the corrupt C.V.S. pharmacy Miss Nye worked for.