What's with the security at my doctor's office?

The heavy demand for prescription drugs is often fed by pharmaceutical theft, which, whether it takes the form of robbery of pharmacies, hijacking of pharmaceutical delivery trucks or other forms of theft, is a growing concern for law enforcement officials nationwide. According to the National Drug Intelligence Center (NDIC), the amount of Controlled Prescription Drugs (CPDs) stolen in armed robberies doubled from more than 500,000 milliliters to nearly 1.1 million in 2007, while the amount lost in transit increased from more than 1.4 million milliliters in 2003 to more than 2.5 million in 2007. According to the U.S. Division of Freightwatch International, last year $184 million worth of prescription drugs were stolen in the U.S., a 350% increase from 2007. Finally, since 2007 over 1800 pharmacies have been robbed. The crime wave has overwhelmed local law enforcement and drawn the attention of the federal authorities, but federal penalties for pharmacy theft are lenient and do not provide federal law enforcement with all the tools they need.