Protected Professions: Pharmacist

I don't know but I suspect pharmacists are the most underutilized professionals in the world. Go to school, get a degree, and then go on to medical school and study drugs for who knows how long. When you finally get out you get a job loading pills into little bottles. I don't get it.

Now I can imagine a couple of reasons for this. One might be attention to detail. Giving someone the wrong drugs could have serious consequences. Perhaps all those years in school makes pharmacists more careful about dispensing drugs. Somehow I don't think so. Any number of jobs require attention to detail, even if they don't require a degree.

I think the big one though is control of the distribution of narcotics. Pharmacists have a large assortment of drugs at their command. Some of them are on the controlled substances list. Can't let just anybody get their hands on those. A pharmacist is more likely to follow the rules, because if he breaks the rules and gets caught he could lose his license. Someone who hasn't invested the time and money getting a pharmacists license is not going to be so concerned.

If people could get morphine at their local pharmacy that might cut into the local black market distribution network, which would cut into their profits, and we can't have that.

And while we are on the subject, are these new pain killers any better than the originals? I know they like to charge an arm and a leg for them, but why? The few bits on information I have come across stress some obscure advantages of these new drugs. Why can't we just stick with the originals like codeine and morphine, which must certainly be cheaper than these new fangled concoctions. I suspect the DEA has an unwarranted influence here.