Your MIL needs to get reassessed by her doctor!

Absolutely she does. Unfortunately according to the psych clipboard test she has mental capacity and refuses to see a doctor. According to any common sense measure (such as the fact she cannot even feed herself and requires 24 hour care) she does not have capacity and needs far better treatment than she is currently receiving.

Can you not phone the MIL’s doctor and let them know they should cancel the prescription, not least for the potential for misuse ?

Similarly the wife’s grandma stockpiled literally thousands of packets of Valium. We found them hidden all over her place when she died. Dread to think how common this is.

We haven’t heard much from the “boyfriend” have we ? Bad back my arse.

At best she is a naive drug mule, personally I think they have given her a short sentence to reflect the fact she appears to have been duped.

The UK authoritoes should pursue and prosecute who she got the tablets from. I strongly suspect they’ll turn out to be very dodgy indeed.

Yep who has 300 tablets of a class c prescription only drug available to give away to a friend?

Horrible drug. I was given 2 doses in hospital after spinal surgery and had terrifying hallucinations, and it didn’t touch the pain.

crankboy – Member
Yep who has 300 tablets of a class c prescription only drug available to give away to a friend?

dannybgoodes Mother in law.

. I realise some doctors don’t get the time to do reassessments but that’s no reason not to do the responsible thing and request one.

Is there no automatic system that alerts the NHS to endless repeat prescriptions without reassessment? It’s dangerous to stockpile medicines at home, as well as a waste of money.

The scenarios where old folks end up with huge stockpiles of prescription drugs is probably far more common than people realise and a significant source of them on the streets.

An elderly relative ended up with a bin bag full of pain kit and anti depressants… what happened is their memory gradually deteriorated and they were forgetting to take their meds… so they would go to the doctors complaining that their pain etc was getting worse and then get prescribed ever stronger meds…

In their case we’ve got them care specifically to come on and remind them to take the now more moderate prescriptions.

What has criminal intent got to do with it?

That’s a trick question, right?

Not really – intent doesn’t have any bearing on whether a criminal act is criminal. What intent has a bearing on is sentencing.

Carry the pills into Egypt was a crime, but whether she either knew it was a crime or not is a factor in the punishment you’d set. Whether the action was her initiative is a factor too. If it was her idea thats one thing, if she was asked, tricked, coerced or forced to do it thats another.

Its quite possible she acted with entirely innocent intentions. Her boyfriend may well genuinely have a bad back, neither of them might have know the tablets were illegal in Egypt, just that they are unavailable, and its quite possible that her granny had stacks of tramadol sitting around just as in the examples above. She might have just kindly decided to take the tablets that someone didn’t need and give them to some who did need them.

Yep who has 300 tablets of a class c prescription only drug available to give away to a friend?

Its available on prescription – as a patient you can receive all sorts of things on prescription whether they are ‘prescription only’ or not. If you asked for 300 tablets they’d probably be pretty hard to get. It seems they’re easy to get by not asking for them though.

And the prescription only element is a bit of red herring in this case – people get into similar hot water passing through Dubai airport with packets of non-prescription Co-codomol – even for having co-codomol in their urine rather than their luggage..

And the prescription only element is a bit of red herring in this case – people get into similar hot water passing through Dubai airport with packets of non-prescription Co-codomol

Only similar levels of hot water if they’ve got 300 or so high strength pills, I would imagine.

I don’t know what her intentions were, but it’s pretty straightforward that she reportedly took fairly large quantities of an opiod into a country where it was banned and got caught, and is now doing time for it. Whilst I personally don’t think prohibition is right (due to cases like this where the punishment causes far more harm than the “crime”), I find it hard to see how the UK government can argue this one without a huge quantity of hypocrisy.

I also find the news headlines somewhat misleading – mentioning only that she was caught with some painkillers sounds like she accidentally left a half used packet of co-codamol in her luggage. This is a long way from the truth.

Only similar levels of hot water if they’ve got 300 or so high strength pills, I would imagine.

not at all – 4 years for tramadol and codine in their urine

Our media loves playing the “you can’t lock them up, she’s British don’t you know” card in these cases. As if it’s fine for British people travelling abroad to ignore local laws, do whatever they please and then expect the FCO to bail them out on the basis of some flimsy excuse when justice catches up with them. The comparison between that and how our press treats foreigners breaking laws in the UK underlines how inexplicably arrogant British people can be about this kind of thing.

Her boyfriend may well genuinely have a bad back, neither of them might have know the tablets were illegal in Egypt, just that they are unavailable

or they knew they had “street value”.

vickypea – Member

Horrible drug. I was given 2 doses in hospital after spinal surgery and had terrifying hallucinations, and it didn’t touch the pain.

Likewise, I boshed a whole strip of them in one go (about 16?) and had the most horrible nightmares.
Will stick to Dihydrocodeine in the future.

A few corrections needed in this thread i think…prescription only doesnt mean illegal to possess if you dont have a prescription….antibiotics are prescription only, nobody in the police is going to bat an eyelid that you’ve ordered a box of Amoxicillin on the internet without a prescription.

The only person breaking the law re. prescription meds is the person (or organisation) issuing them without prescribing rights…the person buying them or being in possession of them is doing nothing wrong….because they’re not illegal drugs.

When i covered Police custody suites in a medical capacity i was asked to see a young lad they’d stopped on a driving charge, he came in with various meds and they wanted him assessed before interview.
They brought me his meds, some were over-the-counter, some were prescription only and one was a bottle of Anavar tablets (an anabolic steroid)…i pointed out to them that the Anavar was a steroid and they said they new, they also pointed out that because it wasnt counterfeit or from an underground lab it had to be considered a prescription medication as it does actually have a few genuine medical applications (tissue regrowth in burns victims i remember finding out afterwards)…and they would have to give it back to him when they released him!

The fact he didnt have a prescription for it is neither here nor there…its not illegal (i believe it is shedule-3 CD – like Tramadol) and so the only person having broken the law in the lad getting hold of Anavar was whoever sold it to him without prescribing rights.

Egypt is a funny place, Tramadol was over-the-counter there until recently…then people started taking the mick with it…huge addiction problems so they banned it…doesnt stop you buying steroids and other UK prescription meds OTC though…i was able to top up all 4 of my prescription only cardiac meds when i was out there for a fraction of the UK prescription charge…i also took prescription strength cocodamol (30/500) out with me when i went, no problem with customs but then it was in its original box clearly labelled with my name and i had my prescription with me to back it up.

But back to the topic of this woman, the Tramadol problem with Egypt has been in the news the last couple of years…she has an Egyptian boyfriend…i’m not buying that she didnt know the score.

.i was able to top up all 4 of my prescription only cardiac meds when i was out there for a fraction of the UK prescription charge…

You might find they only contain a fraction of the active ingredient as well.