Originally Posted by
CPT Trips
Are you sure about the requirement for prescription meds to be in a prescription bottle? PA and NJ are two where you are wrong. Your assertion only applies if the medication is a controlled substance - and even then it's an issue of possession without a prescription.
How many TSA screeners, or LEOs for that matter, are trained well enough to recognize all the various medications that are out there? Pharmacists go to school for six years and they often need to consult references. it'll take more than a minute or two.
As I stated, to the best of my knowledge, most states have a law (with exceptions) against carrying prescription meds outside of the bottle they came in. Most drug arrests involving pain meds involve those that have them without a prescription, and without the required containers. You imply that this rarely occurs. You would be astonished by the amount of people that illegally possess prescription meds that do not belong to them. If they have enough, we can also take it up a notch and charge for felony intent to sell/distribute.
We carry drug identification indexes and have toll free numbers to call if the pill is not readily identifiable. We have been called by TSA during the screening process if pills are found by themselves or in baggies and we hold the person until the pill is identified. If it is a controlled substance, then the person may be arrested. I have yet to be called to a checkpoint by TSA when pills were in a prescription bottle or another container that is commonly used by those who are on several medications.