Indiana leads in pharmacy robberies
Despite some targeted measures to protect pharmacies, Indiana isn’t shedding its unwanted designation as the No. 1 state for pharmacy robberies.
Consider this statistic: Indiana had more pharmacy robberies from the beginning of 2013 to May of this year than any other state.
Indiana logged 367 robberies and California — with a population about six times larger — came in second place with 310 robberies in the same time period.
In 2015, 175 robberies occurred — 132 in Marion County alone — more than the entire state of California for the previous year, said Donna Wall, president of the Indiana Board of Pharmacy.
On Tuesday, the members of the Governor’s Task Force on Drug Enforcement, Treatment and Prevention mulled these troubling statistics and more as they heard from Wall and others fighting on the front lines to improve the situation.
Randy Hitchens, executive vice presi- dent of the Indiana Pharmacists Alliance, said he frequently fields calls from concerned pharmacists. Hitchens has little solace to offer.
“We feel a little weak,” Hitchens said. “We scratch our heads about what we can do.”
Nor is it just traditional robberies in pharmacies. Every time the pharmacy board meets they have to revoke the license of one or two pharmacy techs because he or she was diverting pills, Wall said.
But the bulk of the threat does not come from the inside.
Last year, 17 Marion County pharmacies were robbed three times, three pharmacies were robbed four times and four pharmacies were robbed five times.
“Last year was just a horrible, horrible year,” Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department Lt. Craig McCart told the drug task force.
Many stores — especially those in Marion County — have taken steps to improve security, adding armed guards and time release safes to house the most desired medications, mostly opioids such as oxycodone.
Still, there have been 64 pharmacy robberies since the start of the year in Indiana. The Indianapolis-Marion Police Department considers the fact that it has seen “only” 43 pharmacy robberies since January a relative success.