Drug thefts on the rise as pharmacies targeted throughout Alberta

Pharmacies across Alberta are increasingly the target of thieves who are stealing rising volumes of drugs, a CBC News analysis shows.

Roughly 76,700 doses of pharmaceutical drugs were swiped during break-and-enters in the first nine months of last year.

Depending on the size of the pills, that could be enough to fill almost 800 bottles.

It's also a two-thirds increase over what was stolen during break-ins just five years earlier, according to data CBC News obtained from Health Canada in an access to information request.

Pharmacies have been the biggest target of thefts.

A familiar trend

The trend has become all too familiar for the Medicine Shoppe Pharmacy in Leduc, which was hit by thieves three times during the past six years.

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"Working in this business, this is one of the risks you have these days," said Marnie Ross Kachman, the Medicine Shoppe's pharmacist, adding two of the incidents involved robberies. In one case, the culprit was armed.

"I'm concerned I might lose staff because of the stress of the situation."

The Health Canada data shows all of the drugs reported missing from pharmacies, hospitals and other sources between 2012 and Sept. 30, 2017.

It shows break-ins and robberies were responsible for a major share of all those missing pills and tablets in Alberta during the period about two thirds of the total.

Another quarter of them went missing without any explanation, and Health Canada doesn't know where they went.

"Drugs that go missing from pharmacies or hospitals or illicit prescriptions will generally end up in the streets, in the hands of traffickers or users," said Sgt. Guy Pilon of the Edmonton Police Service. "This is an easy way for drug traffickers to make money."

The data reveals the top four drugs reported missing in Alberta since 2012 were opioid painkillers codeine, oxycodone, hydromorphone and morphine. The list is also filled with other highly addictive medications, such as lorazepam and amphetamine.

Pilon said an 8 milligram tablet of hydromorphone retails for about 35 cents at a pharmacy. On the street, the same pill could fetch $25.

"If you have a large quantity of those, you can make a pretty tidy profit," he said.

Every time controlled drugs go missing from a pharmacy, hospital, transport company or other facility, details about the loss must be reported to Health Canada within 10 days.

CBC News obtained all loss reports across Canada between Jan. 1, 2012 and Sept. 30, 2017 through an access-to-information request.

CBC News limited its analysis to losses measured in capsules, tablets, patches, packages or suppositories, with each counted as one unit reported lost. Together, these accounted for 93 per cent of the loss reports.

Pharmacists part of the problem

Aside from break-ins and robberies, police and regulators must also contend with pharmacists using their access to pilfer drugs.

In one recent alleged case, RCMP say a pharmacist is charged with drug trafficking after 33,000 tablets of narcotics were taken from an Okotoks Safeway over five years.

Investigators say the pharmacist created fake patients and wrote fake prescriptions before taking the narcotics from the pharmacy.

Leanne Rogalsky is charged with 15 counts of drug trafficking, among a slew of other offences. She's scheduled to be back in court mid-July to enter a plea.

The Health Canada data shows a major spike in drugs that went missing across Alberta in 2015. In all, nearly 300,000 doses vanished that year, a nearly 70 per cent jump from the year before.

The volume of drugs stolen through break-and-enters also soared in 2015, though it's unclear what exactly was behind it.

Economy plays a role

Several factors may have played a role, including the recession.

The University of Calgary's School of Public Policy recently linked the downturn with a 2015 spike in property crime, such as break-ins and vehicle thefts. The policy school also suggested the property crime jump may have been caused in part by the explosion of fentanyl into the illicit drug trade.

The implication is that a surge in the availability of highly addictive drugs coincided with wide-spread job losses, and users likely committed crimes to satisfy their cravings.

Health Canada offered another explanation. The department said it started seeing a rise in reported losses and thefts from pharmacies in 2015, when officials began inspecting more drug stores to make sure they were following the rules.

As part of the program, Health Canada has been telling pharmacists they're obligated to report losses and thefts and it says more of them are following through.

Still, after hitting a peak in 2015, the volume of missing drugs appears to have fallen in Alberta, though it remains well above what was reported previously.

Alberta Health Services declined to comment on the data. The Alberta College of Pharmacists did not respond to a request for an interview.

Calgary police say they don't track pharmacy break-ins and can't comment on whether it's a problem. Drug investigators say they also haven't seen big numbers of pharmaceutical-grade medications in the illicit drug trade, noting fentanyl, cocaine and meth remain the dominant substances.

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