My first angry letter! I changed names and all that stuff.

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[pharmacist's name]
Manager, DRUGStore Pharmacy
825 Don Mills Rd.
Toronto, ON
M3C 1V4

Dear Mr. . . .,

On Monday July 18 I came to your pharmacy to obtain a Plan B Emergency Contraceptive Pill to find that you dispense it on a prescription-only basis.

My on-call doctor advised me to seek this pill on Sunday night and informed me that recent changes have made this pill obtainable without prescription on consultation with a pharmacist. My doctor also further explained that the longer a woman waits before taking it, the lower the rate of effectiveness. After a 72-hour wait, the effectiveness is virtually nil. One of the reasons for Plan B’s introduction as an over-the-counter drug is that this timeframe cannot be compromised; your decision to dispense it as prescription-only does exactly that.

The woman who processed my purchase told me that your DRUGStore location, and Loblaws, is waiting to see the results of the drug’s sale over the counter before making the same move.

Dr. . . . , from whom I had to immediately seek a prescription at the Don Mills Family Care Center Walk-In clinic, told me that the drug is over-the-counter, and that she would need to speak with you about this.

I spoke with the DRUGStore locations in Superstores in Toronto (Gerry Fitzgerald Drive), Windsor, St. Catherines, London, and Ottawa, all of whom told me that they do dispense Plan B upon consultation with pharmacists, again without prescription.

Should you wish to discuss this further I can be reached during the day at 416-467-7883.

Sincerely,

. . .


cc. Carmen Fortino, Ontario Operations, Loblaw Companies Ltd.
Ontario College of Pharmacists
Dr. Lance Ceresne, Family Practice Clinic – Sunnybrook Hospital

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I haven't jumped to the conclusion that this was a moral decision on the Pharmacy Manager's part. Likely as not he thinks that Plan B is "the abortion pill"*, but he may also just love the bureaucracy of "testing" things, or maybe he's waiting to maximize his profits on Morning After Pills, or he gets off on breaking the rules until Head Office finds out.

I don't ever write these or cc. the bigwigs, but on a Monday morning when a girl's losing time and this is the only pharmacy she can go to, one guy cannot be the one to break the rules and decide, morally or otherwise, that his own store's policy is to limit access to the drug. Mr. Pharmacist, it's not up to you.

Notes:
*"the abortion pill": Couldn't be further from the truth. Gather round, kids: a fertilized egg has to attach itself to the uterine wall to be able to develop into an embryo. This pill prevents it from attaching to the uterine wall and so it bounces around until it gets, ahem, ejected. Oh and when I read the Plan B brochure I was thinking of the whole reproductive system as a light-up pinball machine. Better yet, my metaphor works.