Employee #1: Why does that scary-looking dude keep coming in here babbling about how his dog ate his medicine and wanting us to call his doctor?
Employee #2: I dunno, but a friend of mine works in the New York store and she says the same thing happens there.
"It's almost like this whole chain is a magnet for freaks for some reason"
Explanation for non-medical people: Soma is the brand name for a muscle relaxant that is a tiny step up from street junk. Drug abusers use it as a "booster" med to add to the effects of opiates such as codeine or Vicodin, resulting in doctors and pharmacists hearing constant stories about how someones Soma got "lost" in ways that blood pressure or diabetes meds never seem to. Among health-care workers, the mere mention of the word "Soma" will send their blood pressure up an average of 15 points. Some marketing genius thought this would be the perfect way to sell underwear.
8 comments:
Soma is also the name of the hallucinogenic drug in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, which was published in 1932, some 27 years before Soma was approved by the FDA.
I saw one of these stores, too, and my thoughts were along the same general line as yours.
AMEN FELLOW RPH FRIEND! It is a "controlled rx" in Oregon but Dr's and especially the scary independent prescribers--FNP's, always manage to over prescribe it. Are they on our side or the junkies?
Be happy that there are so many addicts out there. Junkies=job security!
Wow....some days i think my pharmacy has that on the sign outside!!
Drat! I was going to ask the PharmD in house if he was going to start dispensing undies now. I know the profit has to be higher than the drugs!
He took a copy of the pix to put on the wall in his pharmacy tomorrow. You're his new hero. ;-)
Personally, I always wondered why the original manufacturer named the drug after Huxley's fictional drug. It wasn't just hallucinogenic, it was used to control the masses. Creepy stuff, really, and they named a drug after it?
I know an argument could be made that "soma" = "body" but they'd have to have NOT researched it very well to have not known what Soma was. References to it (not carisoprodol, but Huxley's creation,) abound in literature and film to this day.
Thanks Drug Nazi. I've been wanting to get that off my chest for a while now. :)
Late to the party, I know, but Huxley stole the "soma" name from Hindu mythology, where it is a good-time potion that the Gods frequently partake of. That's probably also where the current drug takes its name. Whoever came up with it, I'd bet a small amount of money, had somehow heard of the Hindu version but not the Huxley one. Likewise, perhaps, the name of this store, although it's a lot longer stretch from "drug of the gods" to "lingerie" than it is from "drug of the gods" to "legal smack."
As a wise man once said, "A little learning is a dangerous thing."
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