Robberies At Pharmacies Increasing In Gaston County

Police said a robbery Friday at a Pharmacy in Gaston County is part of a growing trend. That scares pharmacist Donnie Thrower.

“It's a little scary knowing that you are in a vulnerable position,” he said.

Police said that at 9:30 a.m. Friday a man walked into the Rite Aid on Cox Road, asked for the pharmacist, and then pulled a gun and demanded Dilaudid and Oxycodone.

Eight days before that, another man claimed he had a gun when he forced a pharmacist at the Union Road Rite Aid to give him Hydrocodone. They are addictive drugs sometimes sold by street dealers.

Thrower said that lately it has become harder to get the drugs from the only place they are available, pharmacies. Thrower said there used to be a time when addicts could go to three different doctors, get three different prescriptions for illicit drugs and fill them at three different pharmacies. The police wouldn't know, the pharmacist who filled the prescription wouldn't know.

That was before a new DEA tracking system went into place in July. Now, pharmacists impute your name when you fill a prescription. It lets the doctor and the pharmacy know when someone got it and how much.

Police said those who want drugs are getting desperate enough to go straight to the source, and rob pharmacies.