A couple of days ago, I picked up a couple of prescriptions from our pharmacy. As the pharmacist went to give me my medications, she suddenly stopped and went into the back with one of my containers. She returned and said she had to replace the snap cap on the vial with a child-proof one. I laughed at this and told her that my youngest child turns 20 this month and I wasn’t too worried about child-proofing my medication – especially since my daughter works part-time as a pharmacy assistant.
The pharmacist said that if it was no problem if I wanted just the snap cap. And then she caught me by surprise and said they could change all my prescriptions to snap caps from here on in once I signed a waiver. Excuse me, you want me to sign a waiver so they would not be liable if a child gets into my medication, even though there isn’t a child in the house. She was a bit embarrassed but explained it was not her choice but something their head office required. So rather than educating people to properly store their medications and to teach their children they shouldn’t touch prescriptions, it is no problem as long as we don’t sue.
Ah, modern life.
“Common sense is not so common.” * Voltaire, Dictionnaire Philosophique (1764)
In the Clouds 