Sam's Club Apologizes For Candy-In-Prescription-Bottles Promo
Sam's Club has put an end to their recent pharmacy campaign and apologized for confusing pills with candy. After Joe at Salisbury News, who received the giant pill bottle filled with sweets, wrote to complain, they sent him a response in which they said it was an isolated incident and won't be repeated elsewhere:
We have also shared with all of our pharmacy departments that this is an unacceptable practice and should not be repeated. At Sam's Club we always have the health and welfare of our customers and members in mind with everything we do and we deeply regret that this incident occurred.
You can read the full response over at Salisbury News.
(Note: Joe says Sam's Club gave him permission to publish the email, so you can ignore the "privileged and confidential" warning at the bottom of it.)
(Photo: Joe Albero/Salisbury News)
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Comments:
Hrmmmmm, perhaps this could explain why when I picked up a box of nerds at Sams Club, the box was filled with Adderrall.
Oh yeah, prescription bottles full of candy. Right next to the Clorox bottles full of Kool-Aid.
Who's bright idea was that?
Because of my Health I get 11 prescription's per month and sometimes more depending on surgery's. I don't see anything wrong with a Pharmacy having fun and giving candy in a prescription bottle, I think it's cool of them to do. With all the really bad stuff some of these corporations do, this is really not something that warranted a "save the people from themselves" letter to the corporate offices. I would have sent a thank you note but not a complaint on something that was not intended to be taken serious. It's a shame our society has turned into a bunch of cry babies who complain just to complain and see their letter published here at the Consumerist.
@bigd7387: I think the point was they gave it to a child. Children are very much like animals in that they associate things very quickly. They can also sense your fear.
@bigd7387: Uh... really? No problem with candy in prescription bottles? You don't think that kids would see this and learn to associate pill bottles with yummy yummy candy?
Sometimes the people need to be saved from themselves, when those people are children and there's prescription drugs involved.
@bigd7387:
Giving them to children was ill-advised.
Though if children make associations so easily, it shouldn't be difficult to make them associate pill bottles with fear. ;) And of course any pill bottles should be out of the reach of children who are too young to understand what they are, and a house with children should have child-proof pill bottles anyway. The likelihood of something bad happening because of what this Sam's Club did is pretty much nil, but they still shouldn't have done it.
@Cant_stop_the_rock:
"And of course any pill bottles should be out of the reach of children who are too young to understand what they are.."
Which is MUCH easier to do if a store is not handing them out to children filled with candy ;)
@bigd7387: I think the worst part about this is a drugstore handing out candy in the first place. Sugar has similar effects to euphoric drugs and wrecks your teeth like meth. It's reprehensible for candy companies target children with the support of a health-care business. But then again drugstores have a good business selling cigarettes and lottery tickets too.
@bigd7387:
Right.
Next week, in their "Prepare for Winter" promotion, Pep Boys is going to give away blue Kool-Ade in anti-freeze containers.
@morlo: So studies that show that sugar has no real effect on a childs behavior or the person who is observing their behavior are wrong? Interesting.
@morlo: Oh, I might add I ate many sugary substances, and was not the greatest at oral hygene, but it was a pool toy, and not sugar that resulted in my teeth "getting wrecked":
It was nice that Sam's Club gave permission to republish, but you can ignore the "privileged and confidential" tag even if they don't give permission. It was added unilaterally and is unenforcable.
This is just a lawsuit waiting to happen. Some diabetic will go home and take 3 M&M's twice daily instead of his metformin and end up severely hyperglycemic.
Or someone will decide their percocet pills look like last month's skittles and overdose on their pain meds.
Even if you assume that most people aren't that stupid, there are more than enough opportunistic, lawsuit-happy individuals in our society just waiting for such an opportunity to claim Dear Uncle Harvey died because he confused over-the-counter candy with prescription pills.
I think I would have simply declined the gift and moved on. Some pharmacist was trying to me nice -- that failed -- and (s)he is probably jobless by now
@Hoss: Reading r fundamental:
There was a table in the entry where they check your club card and faster than I could get my card back in my wallet an employee was handing my two daughters actual prescription pill bottles with candy packed in them. What the ...???
@Cant_stop_the_rock: Drugstores should not be selling CANDY in Rx bottles because children often mistake Rx pills for candy - because they're children. It was an irresponsible thing to do, especially since kids and teens are having "bowl parties" where they steal pills from medicine cabinets, throw em in a bowl and eat em by the handfuls. Stupid? Yes. Do they do it anyway b/c they're dumb kids? Yes.
It's a shame our society has turned into a bunch of cry babies who complain just to complain and see their letter published here at the Consumerist.
@bigd7387: It was published in a newspaper and someone other than the writer submitted it to the Consumerist.
I get 11 prescription's per month and sometimes more depending on surgery's.
I'm not sure why you pointed this out.
They used to make candy cigarettes when I was a kid. Yet somehow, I managed to grow up (a nonsmoker) without confusing candy with real cigarettes.
Sam's Club shouldn't have done it, but it's equally unfortunate that some lawyer is going to try to make a fortune off this by exaggerating the potential problem. A funsize bag of M&M's stuffed into a pill bottle is hard to confuse with Grandma's heart meds.
My wife and I recently helped a guy clear a couple of storage boxes of stuff. We were going through our boxes and found an RX bottle. I am thinking great some illegal drugs to trash- what else will we find.
The bottle said something to the effect "John Doe, RX: For life" and had some small Bible passages in the bottle on cards printed with pills on the back. And all was well as we got back to sorting crappy Christmas decorations and TJMaxx decor choices...
@Hoss: If they're not huge jerks the only person who'll be in trouble is the one who came up with the idea.
They don't sound like jerks from their response.
@OMG!ToOMG!,ByMyPonies!_GitEmSteveDave: Pretty much the latter, yes. There's a great study focusing on the secondary placebo effect with sugar, wherein parents who were told that their children ingested sugar interpreted their kids' behavior as being hyperactive at a statistically significant greater rate than those who were told their kids had something else.
So yeah, people are inclined to see their kids as hyper from sugar regardless of the kids' actual behavior.
I would suggest more discretion in the sites you link to on Consumerist. sbynews is a blog with a likeness of Obama as Hitler on it today. Very offensive to me, and I'm sure many others. I'd rather have my kids eat candy medicine than be subjected to a hate site while trying to follow a link from a respected site such as this one.
Where can I find a gun that dispenses candy bullets? I can russian-roulette my way to some sugar!
@inadequatewife: Oh, gods, the perkium looks just like skittles! (+1 bazillion internet points to whoever gets that reference)
@MaxMiami: Thing is, there really is a problem with kids poisoning themselves by ingesting prescription medicine, even if you managed not to. So this isn't inventing a problem.
Seriously, who the hell thought that this was a great idea??????
Wow really?
Who has trouble distinguishing Ju-Jubes from medicine?
The local retirement home did this with Jelly Beans. I thought it was cute. It said "For senility, grumpyness, etc."
@Rectilinear Propagation: Well, shouldn't small children's medicine be kept locked away, and only administered to them by an adult?
When ever I had prescription medicine it was always in the cupboard above the fridge where I couldn't reach it.
I went to a job fair years ago when some hospital was passing out Rx bottles filled with jellybeans. Another badly planned campaign.
@WEGGLES90: It should be, but you don't want your little kids associating Rx bottles with treats. It's hard enough to keep them out of everything else.
Mr. Yuck lived in vein! (Mr. Yuck the poison control guy, remember, the stickers you put on things kids shouldn't get into?)
Wow, thats right near where I live