Well just got back from an hour trek around Newbury to find a chemist who could sort out our 5yo son's prescription for a fairly run of the mill skin problem.

Boots in town were out, so we tried Sainsburys who were out, so we went to Boots retail park - yep they were out too. Only got sorted at Big Tesco!

The moral of the story? Every single pharmacy counter had an addict waiting for his methadone to be served up. They never run out of that in Newbury do they?

Why didn't you phone round before? That would be the real moral of the story, for me.

I'm sure it would...the moral of the story for you is always rather different from the rest of us (but you clearly love it anyway!).

Anyways, because we'd come straight from the doctors to grab a tube of fairly standard antibiotic skin cream, we didn't expect to only get it at the fourth time of asking.

My query is if they never run out of methadone, then why not stock more of a child's skin cream?

How do you know they never run out of methadone?

Because the smackheads have to down it at the counter! I can only assume it's so they don't sell it on, but I saw it in all 4 stores I visited tonight.

Put me right off my cherry lozenge

Tesco come out number one again!

Guess who pays for that!

And there was me thinking it was crème de menthe...

I'm not sure if they do ever run out of Methadone but I should imagine that the demand is far higher for Methadone than for skin creams. I should also imagine that with Methadone the "shelf life" is never an issue as it is so "popular"!!! They do, however run out of syringes and I know this for sure as I have a friend who works in a local pharmacy!!!

What are you saying - they're allowed to jack up next to the Strepsils?

And the children's skin cream!!!

Like anyone else on here that has so far expressed an opinion, I regret the need for this 'service', but I would rather this than more dirty needles in playgrounds and more crime that would probably result from a withdraw of this 'option'.

Agreed!

Also addiction is a disease, regretable, but a disease none the less, I wouldn't imagine the addicts set out to become one, but we are lucky enough not to know what boredom, depression, peer pressure etc leads these people to become the way they are.

Still not good that the parents had to chase around 4 pharmacies to get what sounds like a pretty standard medication though.

And how does giving them "free" (to them) methadone stop them from staying addicts?

PS Don't buy the "disease" thing - once addicted yes, but to start is a lifestyle choice.
The dangers are there for all to digest.

Again, as mentioned in other posts, it is a case of people not taking responsibility for their own actions.
(Now THAT seems to be a modern disease!)

That wasn't the point being made.


To some, yes; to some, no.


Agreed (in many examples), but we still have to consider whether there is a net benefit for free meth, or not. If free meth results in fewer crimes and dirty needles lying around, that doesn't seem such a bad thing on the whole.

It doesn't. It's supposed to stop them going out on the rob in order to pay a dealer.

I believe the theory is that free but controlled Methadone stops another old lady being mugged.

I think it was.

Impossible; evidently you can't.

It isn't free. It's paid for by you and me. We are the ones being mugged!

So you would rather an 'old lady' was mugged to put a couple of pound back in your pocket. People need to realise that a 'free society' comes at a cost and a risk.