Pharmacies break prescription law

There's been lots of controversy over whether pharmacists and drugstores have to fill birth control prescriptions if they object to birth control. Bills have been introduced by both sides regarding this subject.

It's pretty clear pharmacists are required to fill the prescriptions. For them to impose their personal views on patients is a form of elitism. To think they can impose their beliefs on patients is to think pharmacists' personal opinions matter more than other folks' just because of their position.

I have nothing against pharmacists. But why should somebody have the right to force their views on someone else just because they have a higher paying job?

Now the policy that has affected birth control is expanding to pseudoephedrine cold and allergy drugs - just because of the personal opinions of drugstore managers.

In Terre Haute, Indiana, police are telling pharmacists to make these over-the-counter drugs available by prescription only. This despite the fact that federal law makes these drugs over-the-counter. There's no state or local laws in that area making them prescription drugs - and if there were, federal laws would supersede them anyhow.

Naturally, at least 8 or 9 Terre Haute area drugstores are more than willing to comply - thus imposing personal beliefs on customers.

Where are people supposed to go to get the medicine they need? I'm sure Terre Haute is big enough to have other drugstores, but what if this happened in a small, isolated town where the only drugstore was run by thought guardians who don't want to sell these drugs over-the-counter?

Here's an analogy. I think psychiatric drugs are toxic, useless, and dangerous. In fact, psychiatry itself is a fraud. But if I was hired to work at a pharmacy, would I be allowed to withhold these poisons from customers? I better be able to, if drugstores are allowed to withhold Sudafed from me.

At a time when health care costs are finally being reined in, the last thing we need to do is increase health care costs by requiring a prescription just for Sudafed. War on Drugs propaganda be damned.

Pharmacies that made pseudoephedrine available by prescription only are breaking the law.