I get this. But sometimes doing the right thing isn't the same as doing the easiest thing. Just have your bathrooms on auto lock and make customers ask for the key. If they are drug user tell them the bathroom is out of order. Hopefully they get the message to shoot up in a public restroom, behind the building or in portajohn.
I don't think as a mature and responsible citizen it is ever okay to refuse clean needles to an addict. I know many pharmacists do it though and even have told me they wish the government would just round up and execute all the addicts. Empathy. Life can change in a second your family members could easily become an addict overnight. No one wakes up and says "today i want to become addicted to heroin and steal anything of value from anyone who has ever loved me to feed my addiction. The government and their community at large has failed these people isolating them.
A lawsuit from a needle in a parking lot is bullcrap and was probably a scam set up by the litigant.
Thank you for putting yourself in our shoes. I don't know if you are in retail or not. It's appreciated. Now, allow me to address your proposition on having the bathroom on auto-lock and make customers ask for the key.
1. At CVS, you rarely ever have overlap, so that means the pharmacist becomes the key janitor.
2. If you start choosing who you give the key to, you'd better be prepared to explain to corporate and to anyone who decides to file a lawsuit for discrimination.
3. Just because the bathroom is closest to the pharmacy than the front of the store does not mean the pharmacist or pharmacy staff should be interrupted incessantly and eventually make an error. "we do not have keys to the restroom signs". Front staff can handle that.
4. Again, why does it have to fall on the lap of retail pharmacies/pharmacists? Hospitals would have an easier time disposing of the needles. So why not set up the exchange or sales there?
5. Those transactions take time. I've counted them. I mean I'd get two tech hours for a full shift and then what? I'd be the one ringing up syringes? No, thank you. It would be 60-70 people asking for them. No way.
6. That needle is only used as a clean needle ONCE. It does not matter to them.
Insurance companies now cover Truvada for IV drug users. Were you aware of that? That's the government and PBMs realizing that it's costing way to much to treat HepC and HIV in these people, so let's at least avoid HIV. Why? Because they know that needle will be reused many times.
7. Here is the link to that "bullcrap"
Woman stuck by needle in Target parking lot awarded $4.6M
I would much rather prevent that. Survival of the fittest. I understand selling them OTC is not a needle exchange program but when they leave them behind, the transaction inevitably becomes just that. I refuse to. It's always up to the pharmacist''s judgment and when you sell them, you are blessing them with your license. So, again, the answer is no. Note that I am not against IV drug users having access to clean needles. That's not it. You don't need that person getting high in the restroom and then go run around target, or what if you head to the restroom and in their high they stumble upon you, lose balance and stick you with it. That's when the story would change for you.
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