When pharmacy teams report forgery attempts to ACP, it promotes awareness about recent forgery tactics and helps prevent the diversion of drugs across the province. Recently, ACP has received a high volume of forgery reports and has identified trends related to common tactics and locations of recent attempts.
Over the course of 2023, there has been a high number of forgery attempts in the Calgary area. Many of these attempts relate to prescriptions for opioids and stimulants and are attributed to Ontario prescribers.
Regulated members are reminded that Standard 6.6 of the Standards of Practice for Pharmacists and Pharmacy Technicians requires that, before a prescription can be dispensed, a regulated member must assess if it has been altered, forged, or stolen.
Please exercise vigilance with all prescriptions for opioids and stimulants, particularly if you are not familiar with the patient or if the prescriber is from outside Alberta.
If you have concerns that a prescription has been altered, forged, or stolen, take steps to verify the authenticity of the prescription, including contacting the prescriber prior to dispensing medication. Contact information for Alberta prescribers is available online through ACP’s prescriber lists. For out-of-province prescribers, contact the relevant regulatory authority.
What other steps can I take to identify forgeries?
Review ACP’s forgery alert emails, as they contain current forgery information and trends. Regulated members who are not currently subscribed to ACP’s forgery alerts email can email communications@abpharmacy.ca to be added to the mailing list.
Review the ACP forgeries page for information on how to report forgeries and for historical listings of all forgery data reported to ACP.
