Have drug abusers devised a sinister ploy of forging doctors’ prescriptions to get their preferred drugs for abuse?
An incident in which a person tried to slip in such a forged prescription for a psychotropic drug at the pharmacy at Medical Trust Hospital a couple of days ago has kicked up such a fear.
The prescription forged in the name of the in-house doctor and noted psychiatrist C.J. John would have passed on for a genuine one had the pharmacist not familiar with the handwriting and the kind of medicines usually prescribed by the doctor.
Out of suspicion, the pharmacist consulted Dr. John over phone and then took the prescription to him for his personal verification. The doctor confirmed that it was indeed forged and asked the person to be handed over to the police. However, by then he had left, probably realising that he was in for trouble.
“The incident is an indication that medical prescriptions might be getting forged to procure sedative drugs prescribed to induce sleep but have the potential to be abused. In this case another harmless drug was also ‘prescribed’ along with the psychotropic drug, which seems to be a clever ploy of such forgers to avoid evoking suspicion,” Dr. John told The Hindu.
The hospital authorities lodged a complaint with the Thevara police on Thursday along with the CCTV footage of the person concerned, though a clear grab of his face was not available since he was wearing a helmet.
Dr. John said that medical stores should contact the doctor if a suspicious prescription was presented over the counter even as he advised doctors to give contact numbers in the prescription for drugs with the potential to be abused. However, there remains the possibility that a forger could even forge the number as well to sabotage such verifications.
Exercising caution
P.V. Tomy, district president of All Kerala Chemists and Druggists Association, said medical store operators were exercising utmost caution in the case of prescriptions of psychotropic drugs and some cough syrups favoured by drug abusers. “Such drugs are not dispensed against old prescriptions, suspicious-looking prescriptions and prescriptions by doctors from other districts. Refusal of medical store operators to dispense drugs often lead to heated arguments and there had even been instances in which complaints were lodged with drugs controller accusing denial of drugs,” he said.
Notwithstanding that, medical store operators have adopted the approach that it was safe to err on the side of caution rather than inadvertently helping drug abuse.
Mr. Tomy said that the association continued to run educative programmes for its members on safe dispensation of drugs with the potential to be abused and issue circulars periodically to be cautious and to even report suspicious incidents to the police.
