Pharmacy Plot Holes and Goofs (Potential Spoilers)

Something I want to address is that I find there is a lot of inaccuracies revolving around the drug usage and how Jackie attains some of her drugs.

First thing I want to ask about is the huge pharmacy bill in season two. We know that Jackie had been getting drugs from Eddie, and occasionally stealing from the Pill-O-Matix at times. There was also a time that she had O'Hara write her a prescription for Oxycontin, however that seemed to be an isolated incident.

If she had this huge bill of pharmacy purchases, that suggests that there had to have been a time that she had been taking these drugs legally as prescribed by a doctor at some point or another. A handful of times she is seen snorting Avinza (Morphine Sulfate), which is the blue and white capsule that has the blue sprinkles in it. Since O'Hara had only prescribed her Oxycontin the one time, this would mean she saw another doctor at one point or another who had prescribed her these drugs.

Now, to address the multiple inaccuracies concerning some of these drugs. I am a pharmacy technician, and have had a good deal of experience studying and working with controlled substances and the laws involved with dispensing them. There are a lot of inaccuracies throughout the show revolving how Jackie attains drugs, and how the shortages are handled.

For instance, when O'Hara writes the prescription for Oxycontin, Jackie added a 1 where it said to refill 0 times, to make it appear as "Refill 10 times". Schedule II drugs, such as Oxycontin, cannot be refilled without a hard copy for each fill. Hypothetically, if Jackie WERE to be able to get the drug filled more than just the one time, she would have to have a paper prescription for each time she went to a pharmacy to get it filled.

In season three, when Oncology alerts Eddie that only 30 out of the 40 Fentanyl patches that were required ended up arriving, Eddie immediately confronts Kelly. He says "I don't answer to Gloria Akalitus about the Schedule I drugs, I answer to the state". This is inaccurate; drugs such as Fentanyl, Oxycontin, Percocet, etc are all Schedule II drugs. Schedule I drugs are drugs that are considered to have no medical value, such as Heroin, Cocaine, MDMA, etc.

In season six, and this one really bugs me, Jackie calls a pharmacy, pretending to be Carrie Roman, to request a prescription for "Nancy Wood". Oxycontin cannot be called in verbally, whether you give the pharmacy the doctor's DEA number or not. Much like how a hard copy needs to be given in order to refill an opiate drug, it also cannot be called in over the phone. Yes, the DEA ended up being alerted about Dr. Roman's number being stolen, but that wasn't until after the pharmacy had already filled the medication. In reality, the pharmacy would not have filled it at all, without having the hard copy of the prescription.

Also, in my experience with working in a pharmacy, inventory is done on a weekly basis. At my job, when we fill drugs such as Oxycontin, we have to double count how much we are dispensing to the patient, back count the amount remaining in the stock bottle to make sure the numbers are exact, and then write down how much is remaining in the stock bottle. If there is any shortage whatsoever, it is recorded and notified to the DEA. Now, I am experienced with retail pharmacy, perhaps hospital pharmacies are a tad bit more loose with those kinds of rules. However, with how frequently Eddie was giving these drugs to Jackie and with the amounts he was supplying her, red flags would have been raised long before the Pill-O-Matix was installed. Yes, of course Eddie could have fudged the numbers and covered up the shortages, but in reality, he wouldn't have been able to get away with that for long.

I'm sure people will give me *beep* about how "It's just a TV show" and how it doesn't have to be entirely realistic. Yeah, I know it's a tad silly to dwell on. I just think, considering how the plot is directly involved with the medical field and the abuse of pharmaceutical drugs, the writers of the show cut a lot of corners.