Walmart's Prescription Drug Couriers Arrested For Speeding, Smoking
When you think "prescription drugs," you think of clean, sterile facilities, not three stoners driving 100 mph down I-15 with $30,000 of Walmart's prescription narcotics in the backseat. Cops pulled the trio over, which included two illegal immigrants, and called Walmart to confirm that these were the folks employed to deliver their dirt-cheap drugs. "They said yeah they were expecting a delivery and the driver was late."
Iron County Deputy Wade Lee says two of the men admitted to being illegal aliens. The driver said he's been delivering prescription drugs for a company called "Nevada Courier" for several months. Lee explains, "He said ‘I was sitting at home and somebody called me and paid me $150 and a tank of gas to drive these medications down here and drop them off.'"
Police say the men are from Las Vegas. They had made a delivery in Mesquite, two in Saint George, and their fourth delivery would have been in Cedar City. Lee says, "I called Wal-Mart and they said yeah they were expecting a delivery and the driver was late."
We called Wal-Mart with some questions. In an email statement, a Wal-Mart spokesperson writes, "This situation is unacceptable to Wal-Mart. We maintain strict standards for courier companies that transport products for us. As this was a situation involving a contractor, your questions would need to be addressed by the courier company or the police."
Iron County Sheriffs say what's frightening here is the safety of Wal-Mart pharmacy customers. Lee says, "You don't know if they opened the box, no tamper seals, nothing... so you never know what you're going to get I guess."
And now you know how Walmart keeps their drug prices so low.
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Comments:
Waiting for the "We are taking this seriously" moment...
what criteria does one need to get a job at places like Wal Mart?
or anywhere?, just yesterday a woman on her first day at McDonalds screwed up our order twice and looked very confused when looking at the buttons on the register. I'm glad she didn't smoke weed and drive 100mph (or does she?) but still shouldn't there be proper training or atleast backround checks?
I know they aren't direct employees of Walmart, but this is just another reason why I hate them. They've never wronged me, per se, aside from making me late for seeing Pineapple Express, but everything I hear about them is negative.
@AppleAlex: First day on the job and getting confused isn't exactly the same as illegal aliens delivering the prescription drugs. I'm sure the it wasn't the courier's first day driving.
Is Walmart going to sell those meds or ask for reimbursement by the courier company? I certainly wouldn't want to take my chances with narcotic pain relievers, or any other prescription for that matter, that was left in the hands of those three losers.
I'm really shocked at this story. There needs to be strict accountability, responsibility and control over who has even temporary custody of prescription drugs; especially narcotics, and anything that can be opened or tampered with. No exceptions.
It sounds like the courier will certainly be in trouble, but Walmart's self-serving statement is lame and incomplete. It doesn't do any good to have "strict standards for courier companies" if you don't bother enforce them. Not a word in Walmart's statement about looking into what happened, or about correcting the outrageous lapse in responsibility. Just a cavalier take-your-questions-elsewhere statement.
So what exactly IS the chain of transport and transfer for prescription drugs for other chains? The entire concept that they might not be in a controlled situation raises lots of questions about safety, tampering or replacing high dollar drugs with something else along the way.
As far as I know Target gets theirs along with other inventory for the store, they show up in the red shipping bins with lids. I don't know if they seal the bins or not but they at least have the ability to seal said bins.
What the heck is Walmart doing using unscreened couriers?
I'm not surprised. My local Walmart hires floor staff that speak only Spanish and can't help with any English inquiries.
@AppleAlex: well I've worked at McD's for a short period... and hated it. but anyways let me first explain that I am someone with exceptional skill with computers, currently I fix computers on the side for extra cash to pay off things. My clients stand by me and recommend me to their friends and whatnot. Now when I worked at McD's I was avid with computers but not as knowegeable as I am now (its been like 4 yearsish), I could still offer help and whatnot when it came to computers. But anyways, even I had trouble working the cash register... and probably would still have trouble to this day. Basically I am betting the lady who messed up your order was using the same touch screen cash register as I did. The register I used was a decent size touch screen with a red background and blue buttons. Each button on it had cryptic red or black text (cant remember what color the text was) pertaining to options for the order. for example ordering a double cheese burger was "dlbch", the easiest stuff on the menu was ordering a value meal "no.1" "no.2" etc. The UI was not even remotely user friendly and didnt even attempt at trying to become user friendly at any level. There was no logic to placement of the options or settings for it. Mastering operating this thing is a miracle in itself...
I don't think of sterile facilities when I think of prescription drugs. I think of rich drug companies and purchases from Canada and Mexcico.
How long of a trip is this? $150.00 and a tank of gas sounds like a good deal. I'm sure there lots of responsible semi-retired peeps that would be interested.
And I don't think this is Wal-Marts mistake.
@ajlei: That's because they have over 4,000 stores in America and a huge percentage of Americans shop there. You're bound to hear a lot about them. While the company does have some problems, they do a lot of great things for America. Disaster relief is just one of those things. [consumerist.com]
@AppleAlex:
Contrary to what many might say, Wal-Mart is not solely staffed with dropouts, druggies, and dunces. I worked in a couple different stores in a couple different states over an 8-year period from high-school through most of college. Sure, there were times I was irked by things done. Any large company has policies or actions that will be irksome. But by-in-large, during my tenure there, I was well-treated by other associates and management.
The last 4 years or so I had worked in the 1-Hr Photo center. I worked with people varying from photography students to those who had careers in the medical field as claims people and the like. The average intelligence level was not something to scoff at. In fact, you'd probably be surprise at the number of people working for places like Wal-Mart, Target, etc. who have college (or higher!) degrees or are working through said education.
Yeah, there are certainly more than a few dim bulbs in the package. What do you expect with the largest employer in the US outside of the US Govt? (When I left a couple years ago, they had somewhere around 1.4 million people working for them.) But I know when I was working with customers, they had someone who actually wanted to help them (yes, and make a sale -- it is a business, after all), but also tried to take the time and make stuff right. And believe me, when a customer was a donkey, I certainly didn't feel like doing anything more than absolutely necessary; whereas the customers who were polite and considerate received often more-than-fair service, attention -- and when necessary, compensation.
That said, there's more than merely having a pulse that is required. Wal-Mart was good for giving people a fair chance, but they didn't give too many 2nd chances (ie you shoplift from them or etc and you're fired and handed over to the police).
@SegamanXero: I worked at McDs for a few years and they've increased the UI to a point where I was waiting for the computer to catch up to my input.
That being said, working there still sucked.
Shouldn't the Wal-Mart model entail discreet, yet insultingly under-market value bribes paid to the local police to facilitate timely logistics?
Boy, they've sure gone downhill since Sam kicked the bucket.
@AppleAlex: If you're going to troll, kindly remove the Apple logo from your avatar? Poor Steve Jobs is weeping right now.
@bohemian: That's pretty nutty.
From controlled substances to insanely expensive items easily stolen, to being medicine that some rely on to live, it seems highly unsafe and illegal.
Imagine if a pharmacy kept a random selection of all their meds on a spinning spice rack where a randomly selected person from the street could handle them, sight unseen, at their leisure.
Same thing from a control perspective.
@Trai_Dep: And, imagine who'd be blamed for substitutions, counterfeits or missing items? The manufacturer.
Rotten system.
Awesome. Now that I know how they transport their narcotics I'll just follow the couriers from their main facility and steal their car when they stop at a restroom. Woohooooooo! Free Oxycontin for everyone!
Seriously though, 30k worth of narcotics being transported like that seems like such an easy target.
I read that as "Irony County" and lol'd heartily.
Wal-Mart: Always low standards...always.
I don't directly blame Walmart for this, but considering how regimented and anal they are about things such as shelf height you'd think they could do better with something like this. Like have a procedure to help ensure that their contractors are not employing illegals, speeders, and stoners to transport narcotics to their stores. If the contractor had to pay Walmart a huge fine and potentially lose future business I think some background checking would be done. The contractor's cost of doing business would go up, but any other contractors would be bidding under the same circumstances. And I would be less worried about dropping dead of my prescription. I'd be willing to pay a little more for that.
This is such a stupid post. These stoners could have been working any place--even in the Obama administration. The only reason this was posted is because it involved a couple of Walmart employees. I,m sure if this involved Target employees, it wouldn't have been posted. This is such a non-story, get real Consumerist, or should I Communist!
What a dumb ass post. WalMart had zip to do with anything. They needed a courier. Call one and oops its Walmarts fault.
BS....next time you need one....remember you will be at fault for anything the illiterates they hire.
I used to work for a courier service and made several deliveries to pharmacies. For the most part, drug are kept in large sealed plastic bins. Each bin is numbered and tracked, with an inventory list in each individual bin. Schedule II drugs (narcotics, etc.) are strictly controlled. Not only are they in sealed containers, the seals are numbered (so you can't open them up then reseal them). The driver is required to sign a chain of custody form when they pick the Schedule II medications up, then the pharmacy is required to sign the chain of custody form once the delivery is made. All the pharmacies I delivered to would actually open up the sealed schedule II containers and inventory the drugs before I was allowed to leave, to insure all had been delivered.
For the most part, it is a fairly secure system. The couriers in our department were required to pass a criminal background check every 3 months. When we did have drugs in our vehicles, they were required to be locked at all times and we weren't allowed to make any "extra" stops until all the drugs had been delivered.
As for this being Walmart's fault, it really isn't. They probably needed some medication that was either not in their order (that the supplier screwed up) or had a "rush" delivery for some medication they needed for a patient. Either way, this is on the drug supplier (who is responsible for delivery of the drugs) and the courier service they chose to deliver them. This is not Walmarts fault.
@Barney_The Plug_ Frank: For it to be about Target, they would need to wear a t-shirt that read, "Not an employee."
@MooseOfReason: I'm not IfThenElvis, but... I live in El Paso, Texas, right on the border of Mexico. (You may have heard of us recently, with all the people getting killed in our sister city Juarez, Mexico, and a recent kerfluffle involving a news reporter and an angry policeman.)
It happens in WalMart, Target, KMart, stores in the mall, the various grocery stores, the fast-food places, the gas station (last weekend I had to hold up three fingers because the clerk couldn't understand "three") - and even the doctor's office. It is not uncommon AT ALL to encounter floor staff and cashiers who speak little to no English - and they hardly ever need to.
According to a recent local study, more than 70% of El Pasoans speak Spanish at home, and as many as 30% (some studies say ~20-25%) speak no English whatsoever. I want to emphasize here that I AM NOT talking about illegal immigrants - or even legal immigrants. I'm talking about people who were born, as were their parents and grandparents, here in the USA. At least two people that I went to high school with had enough English to get through school, but stopped bothering it when they graduated, and now they don't speak or appear to understand any at all. (I lived in Japan for two years, and got to where I could carry on a rudimentary conversation... with a four year old... but a few years of not practicing it, and it's all gone. I assume the same is true for them.)
It's very difficult to get a job where you have any contact with the public if you're not bilingual (Eng/Span) - but "bilingual" often translates to "Can you speak Spanish?" A friend of mine interviewed for a position that asked for "bilingual;" the interviewer's first question was [in Spanish] "Do you speak Spanish?" and the rest of the interview was conducted in Spanish. It's understandable to make sure that an applicant is in fact *fluent* in Spanish if it's a requirement for the job, but the English side of "bilingual" was completely ignored.
Even jobs where you DON'T have contact with the public, sometimes, it comes into play. I currently do medical transcription for a medical group, and a few years ago one of the doctors made a big stink about some of us in the transcription department not being bilingual. He was reading off the patients' medical history forms - their previous illnesses, medications, allergies, surgeries, social and family history, etc - in Spanish (for the ones that were written in Spanish), and became irate that we couldn't understand it to type it. Five of us were faced with the possibility of losing our jobs over this. Fortunately, three of us were the top producers in the department, and someone in management got a clue and said that if it has to be transmitted to the insurance company in English, it should be dictated in English, so it all came to nothing.
My point is, there are some areas of the country where it's not uncommon AT ALL for employees to be fluent in Spanish, but not in English, and it is not seen as a problem or poor management. If a problem *is* recognized, it's that the English-only speakers don't know the predominant local language. Bottom line, around here, if you have an English-only clerk and a Spanish-only clerk, the English-only clerk is going to cost the company more hassle and lost customers than the Spanish-only clerk.
Cops got Jimenez/Gutierrez issues, nothing to do with Walmart as far as the article describe
calchip is right. This really wouldn't have made a blip on the radar of a local news carrier if it wasn't involving medicines eventually going to Wal-Mart. I hate being a defender of Wally World here but in this case, it isn't fair to paint them into the corner with the courier company.
Now the courier company, those guys should be nailed to the wall....not drug testing people who are couriering drugs? What the heck?! If I know bonding companies, those morons will loose their bond pretty quickly or at the very least have to pay through the nose. A plumber that I know has to pay out the wazoo for his bonding since one of his employees had a drug conviction many many years ago but has been clean and sober. And that guy just delivers parts.
@working class Zer0: $150 and a tank of gas sounds good to me too. I don't make that much money in a day.
I'm not even close to retirement, but hey. Sign me up. As an added bonus I won't speed or do any illegal drugs on the job.
@MooseOfReason: Moose - it's the Walmart on the west side of El Paso. I agree with your perception & lengthy response.
@BarryCaesar: Yeah, this courier company seems a bit questionable. I used to work part time as reciever for a drug store and all the drugs came in boxes that were covered in tamper tape.
The reciept slip listed all the box numbers, the type of box that they should be and the total number of boxes. It also came with a slip listing the contents of each box.
@Shoelace: From what I have seen, when "drugs" are shipped, they are usually sent in plastic "totes", which are then sealed themselves with either numbered Zip ties, or some other form of tamper apparent seal. Inside the totes, the drugs are in their normal "packaging", which includes the sealed boxes and bottles. In addition, unlike normal OTC stuff, prescription meds are tracked by lot#'s, so they know which box goes to what pharmacy. So there would be a physcial record of who handled the drugs, making tampering a low chance thing. So as long as all three forms of seals are intact, they should be fine. If the police broke any of the seals however, then I wouldn't sell them.
"And now you know how Walmart keeps their drug prices so low."
Ah yes. Because Walmart is the only one with a cheap or discounted drug program...
@bohemian: In this case narcotics were being transported. Most likely they were schedule 2 controlled substances. If this was the case, then DEA form #222 was filled out by Walmart and signed by the receiving party. The courier company also has a DEA number as well and received a copy of the DEA #222. However, each individual working for the courier does not have a DEA number as they work under the companies number. Generally, transport of controlled substances is pretty strict and regulated as an inventory count is required yearly in all states. IF that inventory count is off, the pharmacist gets fined. So the pharmacist is going to be looking for that delivery of medications. If those medications are missing, the pharmacist tracks them down usually. If the pharmacist can't do it, then they call the DEA and local state agency and fill out DEA #106. The pharmacist will also inspect the drug shipment to make sure they are not tampered with as the pharmacist will have to dispense those medications under his or her license. Dispensing adulterated drugs is a good way for one to lose their license and job as a pharmacist.
The only thing that seems to have gone wrong here is the speeding and the pot smoking of the couriers. I don't think they will hire that courier service again however.
It's called "security by obscurity" and it's very common. Lots of websites have admin areas unprotected by passwords, you just have to know the URL.
In the case of drugs being transported by unarmed couriers, same thing... couriers probably don't know when dispatched what they're picking up; people looking to steal have no idea who the couriers are that have the goods.
In the same way, a lot of delivery trucks with high-value products (think a 40 foot truck full of $300 Intel CPUs or terabyte hard drives) do not have the name of the company whose products they're delivering on them, to reduce the likelihood of being robbed.
We maintain strict standards for courier companies that transport products for us.
Right. I think it is one "Strict standard" The dirt cheapest company available. End of standards.
@calchip: The security by obscurity concept makes sense for some deliveries, but here, the drivers were so low rent that I think whatever they were carrying--of whatever value--was at risk, not of potential robbery, but of the drivers themselves deciding to take advantage of what they had.
Nowhere in the actual article did it say they had been smoking pot - only that a marijuana pipe was found in the glove box. I guess you can draw your own conclusions there. In my experience, being stoned would not make me drive 96 mph.
While I'm not a huge fan of Wal-Mart, I think this might be a little bit unfair.
Courier companies exist in every city in the US, and with few exceptions, all of them use independent contractors, who generally provide their own cars, bicycles, or motorcycles. It's well known that a lot of couriers take these jobs because they are completely flexible on time and schedule, and my friends who were couriers for different companies in different parts of the US said their own experience was that a lot of couriers were illegal aliens or had drug problems.
If Rite-Aid or any other large pharmacy chain uses couriers occasionally to move product between locations, they are probably also guilty of having people like this make occasional deliveries for them.
Now... there may be a *different* issue surrounding appropriate transportation of narcotic medications, and that depends on whether or not State or Federal laws require that narcotics be transported in secure packaging. I don't know, but it would seem to me that there may be such a law that went into place after the Tylenol problem some 20 years ago.