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  • BDD Moderators: Keif’ Richards | negrogesic

Harm Reduction Anyone had a US pharmacy give bunk pills?

C

chelle216

Bluelighter
Joined
Aug 1, 2013
Messages
185
Im not talking about pills that weren’t up to your expectations, or pills that were the wrong strength and such. What I’m concerned with is a pharmacy unknowingly giving counterfeit meds, specifically benzos.

I recently filled my script for diazepam and noticed something off with some of the pills. FWIW, these are Teva 3927, and this is my first time getting this brand, so idk if this is normal or not. Some of these pills are barely embossed with the TEVA imprint while some are more deeply embossed. The numbers on the backside can barely be made out, and the edges look ragged (some are quite chipped) around the beveling. Now, I understand that maybe these pills came from two different bottles and that pills get beat up in shipping and storage and whatnot. But should I be concerned?

This is what they’re supposed to look like.

This is what mine look like
 
I bet its real.

There is zero incentive to counterfeit a drug that has such a low cash value as generic 10mg diazepam tablets.

Quality control issues i'd attribute to the shady Israeli's who own Teva pharmaceuticals, but i bet they contain at least 8mg of diazepam.

The issue becomes more of a question with brand name drugs of high cash value (like oxycontin), where i would imagine that, on rare occasion, counterfeit drugs enter the supply chain as a result of some junky or criminally inclined pharmacist in a low income area (asian pharmacists are the shadiest as they have the lowest value of human life and the highest value in economic gain).
 
negrogesic said:
(asian pharmacists are the shadiest as they have the lowest value of human life and the highest value in economic gain).
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i lold. ah nothing like threatening your chinese pharmacist over 6mg of hydromorphone, if anyones wondering, i certainly got my hydromorphone that night.
 
It’s possible a pharmacist tech swapped out the pills for pressed fakes, but those aren’t common pill presses and the chances of that are about 0.0001% that would be a serious federal crime
 
It’s possible a pharmacist tech swapped out the pills for pressed fakes
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Most controlled substances prescriptions are validated by two seperate pharmacy techs who both count and verify the pills, all under video surveillance. Some actually have computerized dispensing machines that take a digital photo as an additional validation.

The FDA doesn't play games with generic medicines either, if your fav drug company came to market with defective medication you bet it'd be pulled from shelves ASAP. The recent recall of some H2 antagonists for gastric acid overproduction is an example. And if you kept producing sub-par tablets, the PoPo of White Oak swoop in and your drug-manufacturing license goes bye-bye.

If you have any cocnerns about the pills your pharmacy dispensed, I would take it up with them. That's the benefit of working with a pharmacy: they are much more concerned with the reliability of medications than your average street dealer would be.
 
sekio said:
If you have any cocnerns about the pills your pharmacy dispensed, I would take it up with them. That's the benefit of working with a pharmacy: they are much more concerned with the reliability of medications than your average street dealer would be.
Click to expand...

To update, yesterday I took the pills to a different pharmacy to get an unbiased opinion from the pharmacist working there. Basically, making sure I’m not crazy. She immediately agreed I wasn’t imagining things. She went on to explain that these pills might just be some quality control issue on Teva’s end, or it might have something to do with drug pedigree of the wholesaler my pharmacy utilizes. Apparently, some wholesalers are more trusted above others, and it depends upon this pedigree. In any case, she suggested that I directly contact TEVA and inquire about it, stating that there’s a chance my pharmacy would just tell me whatever I want to hear.

Today I called TEVA and was instructed to file a quality control report. Apart from sending pictures, they asked if I’d be willing to send the script and they’d attempt to get my pharmacy to reissue the unused portion of pills. I declined for the time being. In all likelihood, my pharmacy would probably just give me more of the same. The rep at TEVA confirmed that a couple reports from patients/pharmacists have been made in reference to this issue. Unfortunately, I have to wait 30+ days for the outcome to be sent by mail.
 
chelle216 said:
To update, yesterday I took the pills to a different pharmacy to get an unbiased opinion from the pharmacist working there. Basically, making sure I’m not crazy. She immediately agreed I wasn’t imagining things. She went on to explain that these pills might just be some quality control issue on Teva’s end, or it might have something to do with drug pedigree of the wholesaler my pharmacy utilizes. Apparently, some wholesalers are more trusted above others, and it depends upon this pedigree. In any case, she suggested that I directly contact TEVA and inquire about it, stating that there’s a chance my pharmacy would just tell me whatever I want to hear.

Today I called TEVA and was instructed to file a quality control report. Apart from sending pictures, they asked if I’d be willing to send the script and they’d attempt to get my pharmacy to reissue the unused portion of pills. I declined for the time being. In all likelihood, my pharmacy would probably just give me more of the same. The rep at TEVA confirmed that a couple reports from patients/pharmacists have been made in reference to this issue. Unfortunately, I have to wait 30+ days for the outcome to be sent by mail.
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Did you consume any, out of curiosity?

Quality control most likely, i just cant see an economic incentive to counterfeit these generic clonazepam tablets. You could get 60 of these for $10, or 17 cents each. Its a lot of work and a lot of risk to try to counterfeit something of such low value.
 
sekio said:
Most controlled substances prescriptions are validated by two seperate pharmacy techs who both count and verify the pills, all under video surveillance. Some actually have computerized dispensing machines that take a digital photo as an additional validation.

The FDA doesn't play games with generic medicines either, if your fav drug company came to market with defective medication you bet it'd be pulled from shelves ASAP. The recent recall of some H2 antagonists for gastric acid overproduction is an example. And if you kept producing sub-par tablets, the PoPo of White Oak swoop in and your drug-manufacturing license goes bye-bye.

If you have any cocnerns about the pills your pharmacy dispensed, I would take it up with them. That's the benefit of working with a pharmacy: they are much more concerned with the reliability of medications than your average street dealer would be.
Click to expand...

I have a friend who currently is in prison, he was replacing entire bottles of Roxy 30s with pills pressed on the street.

One of the recipients was a pain clinic patient who peed dirty for fentanyl and no Oxycodone, and the family was well known to the state with a relative being the governor of the state I live in. They looked into it and found her next script to be fake, pressed, and ultimately traced back to my friend who had his pharmacist license (6 year degree). That shit is gone, and he is now serving 7 1/2 to 15 years in prison.

so yes it’s possible, is it likely? No it’s not likely.
 
negrogesic said:
Did you consume any, out of curiosity?
Click to expand...

I have taken a few. I can’t give a good call on whether or not they seem subpar or whatever. There’s definitely something in there, but because I have a months worth of Watson diazepam built up in my system I guess I won’t be able to tell if something is seriously off unless I start going into withdrawal.

edit: Also, the TEVA rep told me these pills are manufactured in the Czech Republic; who knows what goes on over there.
Here is an interesting article about the US drug supply in relation to importing from other countries.
 
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I've heard that most of our generic pharmaceuticals in the US come from India. Can anyone speak to the truth of that? I order some (non-abusable) meds from an overseas pharmacy due to price and they all come from India, even though the website is in a Commonwealth country. I've found them to be exactly the same, for the most part, as what I get in my local pharmacy, so it's no big deal to me. I was just wondering, and wondering how Big Pharma gets away with charging us 10x what the same medication costs if we buy it directly from India or Canada? What a scam!
 
chelle216 said:
I have taken a few. I can’t give a good call on whether or not they seem subpar or whatever. There’s definitely something in there, but because I have a months worth of Watson diazepam built up in my system I guess I won’t be able to tell if something is seriously off unless I start going into withdrawal.

edit: Also, the TEVA rep told me these pills are manufactured in the Czech Republic; who knows what goes on over there.
Here is an interesting article about the US drug supply in relation to importing from other countries.
Click to expand...

Give it a few days and you will know as you will hit benzo withdrawal.

Let us hope and pray that no bunk pills are being given out at pharmacies.
That could kill someone.

Good job for following up on it.
We all need to be watching.

I have certainly noticed a big difference between certain generic brands.
My pharmacist decided to save us all a little money one month by buying some strange yellow MS Contin pills and had every patient he gave them to calling him and complaining in between sneezing ourselves to death.

I tried to take them back to him. Lol!
 
Yeah I dont think counterfeit pills would make it into a pharmacy. More likely it's a quality control issue with a batch.
However I have heard of people massively preferring one brand of medication over another, especially with benzos, but I think this is likely to be due to the way a certain brand may be pressed, leading to different rates at which they are dissolved and absorbed.
I have never came across this issue myself though.
 
As a side note, since generics are allowed to have +/- 20% of the listed amount of drug, it is in theory possible (though rare) for two different generics to differ 40% in drug content. Thus one generic could potentially be substantially stronger than another.
 
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I will say that when used to be prescribed Percocets like 20 years ago, pre opiate hysteria days I might add, I would refused any generic replacement. Even back then, for asking for brand pills, I'd have pharmacists refuse to fill my legitimate script. Give me break! I always found the generics lacking and just started making that request. Hell, these days they'd probably call in the po po. It's pretty obvious I despise this opiate crisis/hysteria. I'm sorry but this has already gone way too far!
 
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