Thank you both for your insights!

I think in both the hospital and retail sectors, pharmacists are operating under time restraints. In the retail setting, there are our patients waiting impatiently for their rx, and in the hospital it is more often nursing calling calling CALLING wanting their meds. Perfection is demanded of us in our profession, but how can we come close with the constant interruptions?

Maybe the two sectors have more in common than I thought. :)

Or they might start ignoring you. Could be either one.

I am all for getting statistical data and would love to see clinical trials. Unfortunately, as was mentioned in an earlier comment, marijuana is one of those "scarlet letter" drugs and there is little chance of profit being made by big pharma. So I won't hold my breath waiting for some real data.

I don't know if it's the most important step, but I agree with the idea wholeheartedly.
In my hospital environment, all liquids are unit-dosed in metric quantities for nursing to administer. For smaller quantities, I think oral syringes are a better idea than cups.

As a parent with 3 teenagers, I can assure you that they ARE afraid of STDs. Do they think they are immortal? Absolutely, but that's part of the territory and probably doesn't stop until about age 40. My husband and I have been talking about sex and its consequences to them since they were pre-teen, and though we morally favor abstinence, we stressed the importance of condom use.

Education is, as usual, the key to reducing STDs. Teenagers don't have a lock on the market for being thoughtless about them. Look at the rise in disease among the elderly.

Back to the question, as a pharmacist, I feel that it is not my place to make moral judgments when filling legal and accurately dosed prescriptions.

Drive through pharmacies and direct-to-consumer advertising are two of the worst ideas ever. I guess it's ok to use to drop off prescriptions. I mean, I can see a harrassed mom with a carload of kids doing that, but pickup needs to be inside for the reasons already mentioned.

That's a good idea. My Mother-in-Law is 89 years young and uses a weekly pill reminder. It's a real help as she can be forgetful and it's easy for all of us to tell if she has taken her medications for the day or not.

While I agree that pill boxes help patients take their medications correctly, it becomes a problem when they are hospitalized and bring a large shopping bag with no prescription bottles with names, directions, etc. Just a large weekly med box with assorted tablets. Many times the patient wants to "use their own meds" and get angry when we have to refuse.