The “They” that people are referring to are the state’s DEA. Pharmacy A doesn’t know anything about Pharmacy B even if both pharmacies belong to the same chain (e.g., CVS).
Each and every pharmacy maintain their own database. I used to write software for a company that supported certain aspects of pharmacies. These pharmacies ranged from incredibly huge chains to mom and pop pharmacies.
In order to know how well a certain drug was selling, we had to grab the databases from all the individual pharmacies and I would write the software that would aggregate the data and chart the results.
But CVS does not have one huge centralized database from all the individual CVS pharmacies and CVS would never have any access to (say) Walgreen’s database.
Now controlled substances are a different story. Pharmacies must (I think it’s now a Federal law) report the sale of all controlled substances to the state’s DEA.
If a person goes to 5 different doctors, obtains 5 identical controlled substances and gets them filled from 5 different pharmacies, then that person will successfully get them all filled. But, the state’s DEA will know what you’ve done. I have no idea what happens next but I’m going to guess that life won’t be too pleasant for you.
On the other hand, if you go to two different doctors for two different symptoms and you receive two or more different controlled substances and get them filled at the same pharmacy, then you’re not gong to be considered a drug abuser.
As an aside, I was looking at some of the pharmacy databases (I had the password to see the unencrypted databases) and I was astonished at the huge number of controlled substance prescriptions. I think that ½ or more of America are on some form of Xanex, Clonopine, Vicoden prescriptions. If you think you’re the only one who takes Xanex, guess again.
Also, did you know that there’s a 500,000% markup on Xanex? That’s five hundred thousand percent.
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