Pharmacy technicians often help pharmacists filling prescriptions and handling the transactions. And state leaders are now looking into adding more oversight for them. Statehouse reporter Andy Chow has more.
There are more than 42,000 pharmacy technicians in the state of Ohio. And while most are law abiding citizens there are some bad actors who might steal from their own drug store.
Lawmakers are now looking over a bill that would require technicians to register with the state.
As Ernie Boyd with the Ohio Pharmacists Association explains, this can help alert stores who might be on the verge of hiring someone who’s stolen drugs in the past but was sentenced to treatment instead of jail time.
Boyd: “But we found that that way of handling it doesn’t allow us on a police background check to really find all the people we need to keep out of the back of a pharmacy.”
The Ohio Board of Pharmacy says technicians make up one-third of drug store thefts.