56 Blank Slate Media Newspapers, Friday, January 17, 2020
READERS WRITE
Helping sick with morphine, cocaine
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recently saw a sign in a pharmacy window that they do not stock any CII or narcotic medications. How can that pharmacy serve its customers with such a policy? I tried to determine who was real and who was not when I had my own pharmacy in a rather simplistic manner. I would call the physician’s office and ask for an ICD9 or now, an ICD10 code, which would indicate to me the condition being treated by the physician and give me a clearer picture of the patient’s needs and be able to offer better care from a pharmacy perspective. I have seen terminally ill patients given Tylenol No.3 instead of a more potent opioid for fear of becoming a target for both the addicts and the
law. It really serves no purpose to explore the source of the problems we have today. Perhaps if the doctors had not written the original prescription in quantities that we now know to be excessive and the pharmacists had not been so quick to fill them without calling the physician and asking for the reason for such a product and such a quantity, we might have avoided some of the problems we see today. Finding a way to serve these individuals is what we should be exploring, I was a young pharmacist alone in my own pharmacy and a nun walked in, dressed in clothing that indicated who she was and presented me with a ”written” prescription”. It contained the following: Morphine
sulfate, cocaine hydrochloride, gin and honey. The year was 1970 and even though I had already been a pharmacist for 13 years and had worked for what seemed forever in a drugstore, I was not certain what to do. I weighed the different possiblities and decided to fill the prescription. I asked the nun to go to the nearest liquor store and buy a bottle of the least expensive gin, and then go next door to the supermarket market and buy the honey, and bring them both back to me, as neither of these was standard stocking in a “drugstore.” Could you imagine in your wildest dream stocking morphine sulfate powder or cocaine HCl crystals today?
The man for whom the prescription was intended turned out to be a priest in a local monastery who was suffering from terminal cancer and was in severe pain and who was being treated with what we know historically as “Brompton’s Cocktail,” to relieve his pain and suffering. Robert Twycross, a leading pain researcher and hospice physician, noted a “tendency to endow the Brompton Cocktail with almost mystical properties. The “Encyclopedia Of Death and Dying” in a survey of teaching and general hospitals in the United Kingdom showed the mixture and its variants to be in widespread use in 1972. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, the psychiatrist and pioneer of end
of life care, became one of its supporters, as did some of the pioneers of pain medicine and palliative care in Canada. This entire episode could not have happened today. The physician could not write a prescription since it would have to be sent electronically, nobody would stock either morphine or cocaine crystals or powder, and no pharmacist would fill it for fear of being considered a target by an addict, and the fact that medical schools, I think, probably do not teach the students how to write a compounded prescription. Try filling that prescription and putting it through the insurance carrier for approval. Bert Drachtman Great Neck
Feeling welcome at Manhasset library
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n light of the recent controversy, I would like to offer my experiences and interactions with the Manhasset Public Library and its director, Maggie Gough. I teach both the adult and children calligraphy classes held at the Manhasset Public Library and is currently the president of the North American Calligraphy Association. The children’s calligraphy class at the MPL will reconvene in February 2020. This is the third children’s calligraphy class offered by the MPL. The calligraphy class takes the pictograph principle of Chinese characters as a start-
ing point and combines Chinese culture with innovative methods to learn Chinese characters, which stimulates students’ interest in Chinese calligraphy. It is also a meaningful exploration of Chinese and calligraphy learning from childhood. In recent years, in response to the needs of the increasing number of residents of Chinese heritage in town, the Manhasset Public Library has hosted or organized many cultural activities with the theme of Chinese painting and calligraphy. The Adult Calligraphy Class started two years ago, and is now in the tenth session with
ten lectures each. Three calligraphy exhibitions showcasing learning achievements of the students were held in the library, which attracted many visitors. Themes include “Fifty Most Culturally Important Chinese Characters,” “Rhyming Couplets of December,” “Manhasset Children’s Calligraphy Exhibition,” etc. In addition, the Spirit of Chinese Ink Painting Exhibit held in 2019 was markedly well-received by the New York calligraphy and painting community for the superb quality of the arts and calligraphy fea-
tured. All these events and activities are open to the public. These activities also demonstrate the respect of the Manhasset Public Library has for the residents of Chinese heritage and Chinese culture and tradition, and the commitment of the library to embrace and promote the multicultural development within the Manhasset community. The mission of the MPL to serve its broad community has won the support and appreciation of Manhasset residents of all ethnic backgrounds. The development and appreciation
of cultural diversity in a community require long term commitments. The support of the Manhasset library for the Chinese calligraphy classes and art exhibits has been a wonderful mean for encouraging cultural exchanges and understandings in our community. I believe that this support from the library is essential and will benefit all residents of diverse backgrounds in the community. Xinde Shen President of the North American Calligraphy Association
Critics unrepresentative of VGN voters
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t’s ironic that the four residents quoted in the articleResidents speak out on lack of public input during Village of Great Neck meetings are actually recorded on the video of the Board of Trustees meeting provided by the village. Those quoted malign the mayor over his lack of transparency and speak falsely about a “gag order.” Yet, the video shows they each exceeded their 3-minute time limit, some of them speaking multiple times.
Unfortunately, there is a small group of people who often hijack these meetings by injecting their comments and arguing throughout the meetings, preventing all agenda items from being heard and providing little constructive input. Watch the videohttps:// youtu.be/oqFbRI3vNbUafter the 2:51 mark – you will see that there was plenty of public comment. Another preposterous allegation of one of the residents
quoted is that when the public’s comments are registered it is too late for any serious revision of any project to be made. This could not be further from the truth. She made her public comments at this meeting and the last meeting. This is one of the few municipalities that have a board that does listen. This resident administers a Great Neck Facebook group that regularly smears and misstates many of the village’s initiatives and has
a clear bias against this Village government. Listening to the small group of ill-informed but oft-quoted naysayers narrows all the thinking in this Village to what a select few unelected individuals care to think and disseminate to others. Many of the rude interruptions that occur during these meetings are at the hand of these self-appointed radicals. They complain about the process, and when that process is
followed to a tee, they argue that it has not been followed. The people quoted in the article don’t represent the thinking of the residents of our great Village, even though they may think they do. Facts matter, and if this publication had any sense of journalistic integrity, it would check the video before spreading falsehoods spoken in bad faith. Dr. Joshua Ishal Great Neck