A locum pharmacist has been struck off the professional register for snorting an illicit drug in a Tesco dispensary and stealing controlled drugs. 

Wayne Griffin, registration number 2050960, was working as a locum pharmacist in Tesco in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, in 2013 when he was caught on CCTV inhaling a "powdered substance" in the dispensary, the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) fitness-to-practise committee heard at a hearing on July 15.

Police also found him in possession of prescription-only medicines without a prescription, some of which were stolen from pharmacies.

The regulator accepted that Mr Griffin’s health condition, which was not revealed, “may have played some part” in his misconduct. But it stressed that his ill health did not excuse his actions, which put the public at risk and brought the profession into disrepute.

Mr Griffin was working at the Tesco pharmacy in August 2013, when a regional manager conducted an investigation into missing controlled drugs. The manager never discovered the reason for the missing drugs but, when investigating, he found CCTV footage showing Mr Griffin inhaling a powdered substance from the dispensary worktop on three occasions.

Mr Griffin was arrested later that day and interviewed by the police, when he admitted to inhaling amphetamine on one occasion. The police went on to search Mr Griffin's car and his house. A packet of white powder that Mr Griffin believed to be cocaine was found in his car, and the house search uncovered a number of prescription-only items for which he did not have a prescription, including sedative zolpidem, an unlabelled bottle of laxative Dioctyl, as well as buprenorphine patches and tablets.

Thefts from employers

During his police interview, Mr Griffin also admitted to stealing a phone charger from Tesco. He had received a police caution for this in May 2014, which he had failed to report to the GPhC. Mr Griffin also confessed to removing a packet of hayfever medication loratadine from the pharmacy, which he later conceded was lorazepam.

Mr Griffin was found to be in possession of eight tablets of narcolepsy drug modafinil while in police custody, which he admitted he had taken without permission from a Co-operative Pharmacy in Corby after they had been returned by a patient, the regulator heard. 

The GPhC noted that the only mitigating factor Mr Griffin put forward for stealing from his employers was that they “owed him a substantial amount of pay” - it was not specified whether this was the Co-operative Pharmacy or Tesco - as a result of an administrative error.

Although Mr Griffin admitted to being unfit to practise, the regulator said he showed “no evidence of remorse or contrition” for his actions. He appeared to have no intention of remedying his misconduct or cooperating in treatment for his health condition, the GPhC said. 

The regulator concluded that Mr Griffin had shown a "wilful disregard" of his duty to ensure medicines were only dispensed with a valid prescription. His amphetamine use at work put "the public at risk and brought the profession into disprepute", said the GPhC, which ruled to remove him from the register.

Read the full determination here.

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