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Down street from hospital, man in scrubs robs drug store of Oxycontin

Oxycontin suspect Boston Police report they are looking for a medical professional or wannabe who held up the Rite Aid at 100 Cambridge St. around 8:30 a.m. on Monday.

According to police, the scrubs-clad man walked into the drug store, grabbed a black knit cap from a display, put it on and then showed a pharmacist a note that read:

Don't take the note. Just give me what is on the list. You don't want to see what happens.

What was on the list was Oxycontin, police say, adding the man kept his right arm under his top, as if he had a gun, although he did not actually display one.

Know him? Call 617-343-4248.

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Comments

What's funny is the number of communities racing to pass legislation to ban or severely limit (read: ban without actually banning) marijuana dispensaries ahead of the new law.

I wonder how many of those same communities have banned oxy sales, or denied a new Rite-Aid or CVS from opening up.

Wake up, people. Oxy is a much more dangerous drug than marijuana. It's crippling addiction leads to people like Ed Helms in scrubs above needing to rob a store to either feed his addiction or that of someone else. And because people will pay what they need to get it, the reward starts to thoroughly outweigh the risk.

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LIKE This.

I agree 300%. I received an email from my city manager last week about how they are going to try to block dispensaries in Chelsea. This angers me because I see more strung out people on opiates and benzi's in Chelsea than I do anything else.

And Jay Ash is concerned about pot and the 'message' it will send to children. Really? And strung out, heroin junkies walking around downtown Chelsea is a good message to send to children?

Just a few days ago, I'm waiting for the bus and these two obviously strung out hookers were walking somewhere, while passing children and parents on their way to school. Is this the image we want to send to kids? I think not.

What REALLY gets my goat about this is that over 60% of Massachusetts voters voted FOR this law. And the politicians are disobeying their voters and trying to ban this. It's like they really don't care what the voters think and will just do what they want.

oh wait.. this is Mass, they do anyways /sarcasm

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How many people voted "yes" for weed sales, but will vote "no" for weed sales in their city/town?

You can't put 100% of the blame on politicians on this one.

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Over 60% of the voters voted FOR this. Regardless if it was in their town or not, it was still voted into law.

Maybe voters need to be be more informed before they vote. Just sayin..

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If most voters don't know what building are zoned where. I'm sure Brookline and Newton voters want people to have the right to medical marijuana, but they don't want the actual buildings to be in Brookline or Newton.

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In Medford, most of the elected officials still loudly proclaim their opposition to a methadone clinic that wanted to open in town in the 90's. As if we don't have junkies. I had a nasty, bloody fight in a 9th grade classroom I taught in the early 2000's. The fight was over payment (or lack thereof) for Oxy.

Fast forward to 2013. The mayor is trying to effectively ban cannabis dispensaries by disallowing them while the city reviews zoning regulations. Of course, the zoning review would last until after the dispensaries would all have to open elsewhere.

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In case people forgot Oxycontin gives relief to people suffering from horrific and debilitating pain.

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The pharmacies make it harder to obtain though, since many are no longer willing to stock it due to the robberies.

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If you banned Oxy, you'd be banning a substance that helps some people reduce their chronic pain just enough to get through the day. There are people who have tried other pain killers and ways of trying to help their situation and that's the only thing that works.

Feel free to be the person who tells someone who takes it responsibly and under a doctor's care that you're going to take it away because other people abuse it.

A lot of people abuse benzos but I have severe panic attacks and take klonopin for them. It's the only reason I can leave my house in the morning without feeling like I'm going to die. Should we take away the medication that gives me the life I want because other people abuse it?

I agree that cities and towns are being royal PITAs about dispensaries but try to keep the logical fallacies down to a dull roar.

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I wonder how many of those same communities have banned oxy sales, or denied a new Rite-Aid or CVS from opening up.

The poster was clearly using a rhetorical device to point out the stupidity and hypocrisy of fighting marijuana dispensaries when far more dangerous drugs are dispensed in all communities.

IF you read it properly in context, the above quote is clearly not a proposition - just a rational extension of the reactive foolishness of townie politicians - IF they were rational.

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Just curious? You say that you can't function with out your K-rations, do you think of yourself as a drug addict?

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This comment is ignorant. Just because a drug can be abused, doesn't mean that a person who needs it to function is addicted. You would never say that a person who needs insulin to stay alive is addicted to insulin, would you? Do yourself a favor and look up the definitions of addiction, dependence, and tolerance.

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I feel completely at ease asking that question. I am diabetic, with Stage3 CKD, hypertensive, and with advanced CAD. I take 16 pills daily and a shot of Lantus once a day. Previous to these health issues I was an abuser of cocaine, prescription pain killers and alcohol.

So you accusing me of ignorance without knowing anything about my checkered past, kind of makes you the ignorant one,no?

And as far as Nancy not being addicted, see how she would feel trying to go about her business without her Klonopin.

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Technically it would qualify as a chemical dependency (i.e. substance dependency) if they can't function without taking something. However, it only becomes an addiction per se when adverse consequences result from the substance that is being taken.

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I have been taking 2mg klonopin 2x/day for over eight years. In that time, other than missing a dose because I forgot to take it at night once in a while, I have been in compliance with my doctors orders.

The fact that I have been functioning on the same dose for so long and have not required an increase to get the same effect means that I am not an addict.

I am, however, physically dependent on it and would go through an extremely unpleasant withdrawal if my doctor and I decided that I should stop taking it.

I am perfectly ok with that. I have a chronic brain condition and it's unlikely that I will ever choose to stop taking it. My brain likes it just like my Dad's Parkinsonian brain likes Levodopa.

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but if your body is physically dependent on a drug for you to function normally, then you're physically addicted, IMHO.

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The question of whether discontinuing use of the Klonopin was misleading. Nancy already stated that using the Klonopin relieves her of anxiety attacks. So of course ceasing use of the Klonopin will result in a return of the anxiety attack. The reasoning is circular and fails.

But to say "you're physically addicted, IMHO," (which sounds pretty arrogant in my IMHO) implies that Nancy's need to Klonopin is comparable to a heroin or crystal meth addict's need for his or her abused drug. This is comparing apples and oranges and it is a comparison that is just plain mean.

Being mean and attacking a person, explicitly or implicitly, especially when they are dealing with a medical condition is cruel, helps none and hurts all.

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Thank you for your concern but I have asked my psychiatrist and other doctors and nurses many times about the difference between dependence and addiction. I'm pretty sure I'm not an addict (to benzos).

As I stated before, I am dependent on my medication. I am not addicted to my medication. Dependence involves taking a medication in a controlled way without having to increase the amount of the drug needed to get the same results. Addiction is a loss of control where the person has to keep taking more and more of the drug to get the same result.

But truly, I feel the love.

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I just hope that someday if you decide to get off the Klonopin, you don't have as hard a time as I did getting off of Zoloft. It took three weeks for my body and brain to rid itself of that crap and it was worse than getting off of Oxys for me.

I was not trying to be mean or critical to you in any way. Having spent an inordinate amount of time around junket doctors, I feel that a lot of them write scripts based on how well they were treated at the Ocean's Edge at the last Pfizer sponsored golf outing.

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If you banned Oxy, you'd be banning a substance that helps some people reduce their chronic pain just enough to get through the day. There are people who have tried other pain killers and ways of trying to help their situation and that's the only thing that works.

Funny--replace "Oxy" and "pain killers" with "marijuana" and you have the EXACT same argument FOR marijuana approval. If anything, you give a stronger argument in favor of marijuana, a far less addictive and dangerous treatment than any of the others you mention. Not to sound insensitive toward your condition, of course. My father is debilitated with a neurological disorder and cannot get through his day without, well, marijuana. Can't see how you can favor one and not the other.

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One can kill you if you take too much, and the other cannot. That's a good reason to make one fully legal and the other only with a doctor's prescription, in my opinion.

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I'm for it and for keeping other substances that some people don't like available to those who need it.

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curious how to manage this stuff. A close relative with terminal cancer took Oxy for pain and it worked well, much better than some other painkillers that resulted in some scary sleep-walking and zoned-out behavior. Unfortunately within days after she died, we realized that the giant bottle of Oxy we had refilled within the past couple of weeks was nowhere to be found. Our collective family instincts "knew" exactly which hospice nurse was responsible for its disappearance but there was no way to pursue it without throwing suspicion on the other hospice nurse (lower ranking, foreign-born) who we were damn certain had nothing to do with it. It was a sad, eye-opening experience--perfectly timed to coincide with the time when we were exhausted and grieving and totally unable to follow up in any way. Perfect crime.

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For some organizations, dumping out the dangerous narcotics is a standard practice once the person in their care has passed away (I know when I set up hospice for a relative in a different state, narcotics accounting and disposal after death was legally required and spelled out in the contracts).

Did you check with the hospice to see if this was their policy?

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Definitely not. This was home care and the circumstances and the behavior of the person were--in retrospect--so suspect...There's no way that anything was deliberately dumped--we had to go through all of the leftover meds and then realized that hey--that huge bottle of Oxy? Gonzo.

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Liking just for the Ed Helms in scrubs description. I was searching for a way to describe that guy - fits perfectly. That guy must have such a desperate habit.

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Is it just me or is this guy a ringer for Ed Helms of The Office and Hangover fame?

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their scrubs on the street, going home, etc.? They can't change into civilian clothes? They want people to know they're a doctor, think they're a doctor, etc.? I've also noticed they tend to have an 'attitude'. No one is particularly impressed you work at MGH.

I was a technician at MEEI for a few years while in college, had to wear scrubs, and never wore them on the street, train, going to and from work. I always changed into regular clothes.

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Changing at work/home can be a pain and time consuming. Why not just get up and wear what you wear at work instead of changing 4 times a day?

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Some people get bled on, barfed on, etc. You want that at home/on the T?

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Scrubs aren't street wear, in my opinion. The pants are barely pants. I'd feel naked wearing those things. Plus, it can't be good for someone in an operating room to be wearings scrubs full of germs and crud from the T.

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and they wouldn't wear them home if there was blood or puke on them.

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Otherwise, scrubs are just a uniform worn by many people, not just those at hospitals. Medical offices, labs, homes, health care students, etc. And then there are those who just wear them as fashion, though I don't know how popular that still is (seems to have been when I was in college.)

Anyone can buy a pair. I never felt naked wearing them in the lab.

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They're hardly restricted to the medical elite...and if you want to rob a store in a medical area and confuse the police, they're a good investment.

"He must be a nice guy who works at the hospital, saving people and passing background checks! He's no threat to me!"

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In the early 70s as a teen, me and my friends would occasionally slip into the Mass General and help ourselves to a handful of scrubs (the tops, never the bottoms. For a while back then it was kind of a fashion statement to wear them. Sometimes we would personalize them with patches or other things. I don't know if people could slip in and out of such places unnoticed like we did back in those less security-conscious times.

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Wow, does this really bother you that much? someone has an inferiority complex...

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I love that this moron grabbed a black knit cap from a display and put it on. Did he think this would change/disguise his appearance after he was already IN the store and on camera? Or maybe he was just cold from the chilly weather.

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isn't oxycontin, at least in pill form, no longer being offered/stored in MA pharmacies? Largely in response to the tremendous spike in robberies just like this one at the height of the opiate epidemic. Not like it really helped because all that did was make percs more popular and prevalent, but oh well gotta start somewhere...

Just for the record oxycontin is not the same as oxycodone, but my guess is this robber got a bag full of the latter.

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You can still get it from pharmacies, but most require you to bring in the prescription, have them order the medication, and then come back to pick it up. Therefore, they probably didn't get too large a quantity of oxycontin.

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I have to wonder if it would be possible for a pharmacy to have "decoy" oxy on hand - pills that looked like real oxy but were actually duds they kept around specifically for robberies?

Of course, there would be the considerable risk of mix up - unless the pharmacy did "special order only" with the real stuff.

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