Time-delay safes looking to decrease pharmacy store robberies in B.C.

A new program geared at enhancing the security for all community pharmacies has been launched across the province.

DrugSafeBC will see all community pharmacies store narcotic drugs in a time-delay safe. This program sets a precedent by making B.C. the first province in Canada to mandate security requirements for community pharmacies.

The program comes on the heels of a dramatic increase in pharmacy robberies in B.C. over the past seven years, according to the province’s College of Pharmacists.

By July 2014, the number of pharmacy robberies and break-ins had already surpassed the total number of incidents in 2013.

Time-delay safes have proven to be effective in acting as a deterrent to pharmacy robberies. In the United States, the large retail pharmacy chain Walgreens introduced a similar program in 2009 and had a 76 per cent reduction in robbery rates across 1,400 stores.

In Canada, the supermarket chain Safeway also uses time-delay safes in their pharmacies and has had success with not having reported a single pharmacy robbery since their implementation.