Opiates are the religion of the masses.

When I go on rare occasions to the pharmacy, I sometimes wish the privacy acts could be waived for a minute, so I could know just what is going on with the large size grocery bags of pharmaceuticals lining the floor behind the cash register, waiting for pick up by whom? Diabetics? Aids patients?

I suspect it is neither. Just a large set of very good customers for Pizer, Merck, and the rest of them.

Devout Muslims pray at least five times a day. Devout Americans apparently medicate at least that often. This is to keep living? So we can...find out who wins American Idol? Oh, and watch pharmaceutical commercials?

Our ability to keep people alive has far outweighed our ability as a society to pay for such, and we are not weighing quality of life or value of life issues carefully enough, in my opinion.

Consider this my living will. If I need more than, say, three pills a day to keep me going, forget it. No drastic surgeries, life support, kidney dialysis, etc. And if you ask me my name and I can't give it to you, let me go. Hell, I'm not sure I wanna go on living if I can't cast on twenty and make a stockinette swatch, get what I'm saying? Knitting is life, and the rest is just...well, not necessarily worth living.

Some people are so sick and so medicated that the only time they get out is to get groceries, which is convenient because they can pick up their drugs at the in-store pharmacy. The local Winn-Dixie supermarket (oh Qwerty and Jurassic that is the name of a local grocery store chain here, in Chapter 11 btw) would not be in business at all were it not for the pharmacy. The two streets that intersect at that Winn Dixie have a pharmacy on EACH of the four corners. Walgreens, cross the street, Rite Aid, cross the street, Winn-Dixie (with a pharmacy), cross the street, Publix (with a pharmacy). One article I found pointed out that WalMart alone employs over 6,500 pharmacists.

And then we have the whole thang about pharmacists who will not fill plan B birth control prescriptions or, the latest outrage, herpes medications, because it goes against their personal religious/moral intentions. One thing you can say in favor of Christian Scientists, folks, is they do not become pharmacists. They understand hypocrisy. Fundys who have a problem with anything the FDA says is legal should stay out of the business. Period.

There's some scary stuff going on out there, folks.

Edit: On further consideration, there isn't anything funny in this post, and that's not why you come to Blue Gal. So anyhoo, Poundy has a good idea: if your pharmacist won't let you have birth control, take your brats in there and...drop 'em off!!!

And here, courtesy of Chickenhead: