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Woman Facing Over A Dozen Drug Charges After Passing Fake Prescriptions At Local Pharmacy
March 11, 2010
A Pensacola woman is facing a long list of drug charges after attempting to fill a fraudulent prescription at a Century pharmacy and deputies found a stash of prescription drugs in her car.
Bertha Y. Wright, 43, of Michigan Avenue, Pensacola, was charged with 11 counts of possessing a controlled substance without a prescription, three counts of obtaining a controlled substance by fraud, one count of trafficking in hydrocodone and one count of possession of a blank prescription.
When Wright attempted to fill three prescriptions at Century Pharmacy on Mayo Street, the pharmacist suspected that they were fraudulent. Julie Moran called the doctor that allegedly issued the prescriptions, Dr. David Smith in Jay, and determined they were indeed fraudulent, according to the Escambia County Sheriff’s Office incident report.
The first prescription was written for Phenergan and codeine. The second was for 180 methadone tablets, and the third was for 120 Soma tablets. All three were dated March 3, 2010. Deputy David Bashore contacted Dr. Smith by phone, and he advised that he last saw Wright in February and had written no new prescriptions for Wright.
Inside Wright’s purse, Bashore located an unlabeled prescription bottle containing methadone, a bottle with generic Lorcet and generic Soma mixed together, and a third bottle with methadone.
When deputies Michael Coburn and Tod Day searched Wright’s vehicle across the street from the pharmacy, they discovered a variety of medications — the sheriff’s office incident report lists about a dozen other medications by their identification numbers. The report identified 127 hydrocodone tablets and the muscle relaxer Carisoprodol. An ice-filled cooler in the vehicle also contained three bottles of an unknown substance, according to deputies. The vehicle and the medications were seized as evidence by the sheriff’s department.
Comments
13 Responses to “Woman Facing Over A Dozen Drug Charges After Passing Fake Prescriptions At Local Pharmacy”
AMEN.KARI!!!!!
I think it is very important that we have a system that pharmacies and pharmacists can see someone’s prescription history before filling them. This would stop “drug shoppers” from going from doc to doc getting prescriptions because they are addicted, or because they are selling. A nationwide database – every time something is prescribed to you, it is entered into the database, and before getting a prescription filled, the pharmacists can see your history, and know if this prescription is valid. Then they can enter the date filled, etc. Just like electronic medical records.
To ‘Watchman’, Very well put. Wish everyone would realize your most valid points.
This woman was apparently attempting to pass improper prescriptions for NARCOTICS, not antibiotics or blood pressure medicine — NARCOTICS. View a copy of the police report, or go to the hearing. She knew what she was doing – but she got caught. Dealing in death is not a good or socially acceptable way to make a living.
Kudo’s to the Pharmacist for having the policies and procedures (and GUTS) and the alertness to catch her and get her off of the street. That is a very dangerous part of the Pharmacist’s job that is often over looked – stopping someone who is trying to steal narcotics.
These are potentially very dangerous people, and the Pharmacist “busted’ their deal”. Catching a person like this, either a user or dealer, is like catching a Polarbear with your hands – now that you have it, what do you do with it? You can’t hang on and you can’t let go . . .
Zenith,
I am impressed by the authority with which you seem to speak; however, as someone who has established and operated a regional drug testing laboratory, and an EMS service, I must disagree with your idea that drugs should be legalized.
I once had to pry the remains of an 8 month pregnant mother of THREE other children out of her mini-van that had been run totally over by the pot-stoned driver of a huge logging truck . . . and I can tell you that just because alcohol is legalized, the tax money from the sale of it does not come even-close to covering the damage it causes – even just the physical damage, not to mention the damage to families, communities, and the children of drinkers.
I must also say that “the War on Drugs” has failed, and we cannot continue to operate on THAT basis and expect the outcome to be successful or even different. I APPLAUDE THAT YOU ARE STRIVING mentally and emotionally for a viable solution.
I think we must address addictive personalities in a preemptive manner however, to “enable” their bad behavior by feeling sorry because society has imposed a punishment of “shame and isolate even further an already shamed and isolated person”. Shame and isolation has for centuries been the most severe punishment society could impose other than death.
The problem here is NOT the corner dope dealers – they are a problem unto themselves – but moreover, they are a symptom of social decadence and jailing them is a dysfunctional solution attempt. Simply replacing them with a “government dope store” is gross foolishness in my opinion; however, YOU ARE CORRECT, we MUST DO SOMETHING, and it must be DIFFERENT from what we are now doing.
We cannot give a FREE-PASS to people who abuse their freedom and become a FATAL danger to society. There is no easy answer to this problem – certainly not legalization and enablement that allows ANYONE to become an irrational and irresponsible killer of innocents.
That was my step-mama who caught her!!! Way to go Ju Ju!!!!
Love you!
Thank you Zenith for your comments. It is easy for people without a clue to post ignorant comments. It is far easier to throw stones than to show a little compassion for these individuals. I have no idea if this woman is addicted or a drug dealer. If she’s a dealer than she should be in jail. If she’s addicted I hope she can get help.
Desperately ill people do desperate things. Though addiction is a health problem, it should not be a legal one. Back in the early 1900s opiates were sold over the counter and there were quite a few people who were physically dependent on it–many of them middle or upper class homemakers. Though it may have caused some social or family problems (or it may not have–many became tolerant to the effects and merely needed the drug to feel normal), it did not generally cause legal issues, theft, forgery, etc. There were no streetcorner heroin dealers–Bayer made Heroin and it was available over the counter. Sears Roebuck sold a hypodermic injection kit.
In no way do I mean this to imply that this was idyllic–merely that it kept physical addiction in the health care sector rather than in the criminal justice sector. I believe firmly that legalization is the only way to return this issue to it’s proper sphere. Incarceration does not “treat” drug addiction, nor does it “scare” ill people into wellness. It merely serves to shame and isolate even further an already shamed and isolated person, without resolving the crux of the issue, and leaves them with a lifetime of “fallout” to deal with (i.e., no student loans, no federal assistance, no food stamps, no housing assistance, countless legal bills, and a felony conviction forever impacting their ability to get a job with a living wage.
This situation is nothing to laugh at and I hope she gets the help she needs.
I’m sure there’s several people going with out their meds in Century this weekend ! ha ! What a shame, they’re going to go without until they find a new pusher …oh …I mean doctor.
Heaven forbid she get a REAL job washing dishes. Fraudulently buying and selling drugs is so much less work! A real role model.
Glad they caught her, this is alot of drugs; some being very powerful… People should not take other people’s drugs, and they should not abuse taking medications either. Some people take entirely too many of these drugs mixed together, one day their gonna fall over dead like my uncle did…
thats abig dummy you can tell she is strung out on something
that’s a lot of drugs!