From Confrontation to Collaboration: Collegial Accountability and the Expanding Role of Pharmacists in the Management of Chronic Pain

Abstract

Federal and state laws create a tightly controlled system for distribution of those drugs that have recognized value in therapy, but also have the potential for abuse. The challenges pharmacists face in keeping controlled substances within the closed system are many and complex. Drug abusers and drug dealers have at times seen pharmacists as easy marks for access to abusable drugs. Unfortunately, pharmacists often find themselves in a game with criminals, who use both sophisticated and dangerous methods of inducing pharmacists to divert controlled substances. The effects of this problem on the health-care system have been judicially noted:The frequency of these crimes has terrorized the community of dispensing pharmacists. Some pharmacists have ceased to carry drugs that are highly desired on the black market, although this interferes with their patients’ ability to obtain necessary medicine. This has a serious potential to impede the delivery of health care in many communities around the nation.