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I quit my last job because everyone deserves access to clean medical supplies.

My last job was in a retail pharmacy that operates in a grocery store. For a long time, like years, we were the only pharmacy in town that sold 10-pack bags of insulin syringes. A lot pharmacies only sell boxes of 100, which tend to cost $40-50 to the customer where as abag of 10 only costs $5. Usually folks buying these bags were intending to use the syringes for illegal IV drugs. In the time I worked there there was never an issue with any of these customers causing problems or creating a scene. The manager of the pharmacy decided to stop selling the bags and only sell boxes because “the customers who buy them make some people uncomfortable”. I volunteer with and care a lot about harm reduction. There are decades of data that show access to clean medical supplies does not increase the rate of drug use…


My last job was in a retail pharmacy that operates in a grocery store. For a long time, like years, we were the only pharmacy in town that sold 10-pack bags of insulin syringes. A lot pharmacies only sell boxes of 100, which tend to cost $40-50 to the customer where as abag of 10 only costs $5. Usually folks buying these bags were intending to use the syringes for illegal IV drugs. In the time I worked there there was never an issue with any of these customers causing problems or creating a scene. The manager of the pharmacy decided to stop selling the bags and only sell boxes because “the customers who buy them make some people uncomfortable”.

I volunteer with and care a lot about harm reduction. There are decades of data that show access to clean medical supplies does not increase the rate of drug use in an area, but it does lower disease rates. Making medical supplies only available in bulk quantities at a higher cost just makes it so that less people will have access to them. Yes, I know the price per syringe is the same or lower, but a person is more likely to have $5 than $50. I had a private meeting with my manager to talk to her about the facts and how this could only have a negative impact on our wider community. After going back-and-forth for a while she told me “I have a business to run”. She pulled me into another meeting a week later with another pharmacist who's more of a hard-ass, assumingly because this 2nd Pharmacist isn't a pushover and would've actually argued with me, but I told them if the policy change was still happening I didn't have anything else to discuss and that I was seeking other employment.

Regardless what your beliefs are about harm reduction, knowingly making clean medical supplies harder to access because the group of people who need those items make you arbitrarily uncomfortable without putting you in any danger or jeopsrdy you are not a good medical professional. Especially when the Pharmacists' Oath is literally to reduce suffering whenever possible.

Got a new job about a month later as an in-home caregiver. Working for a company that's actually focused on helping people instead of just milking them for money is such a huge improvement for my mental health, even if I took a paycut to achieve it.

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