DRUG PRICES

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

I am writing to you in protest of the astronomical prices of drugs which must be obtained on prescription in the Square. On Tuesday February 9, I was given a prescription for ointment from Dr. Ryack at the University Health Center. When I asked Dr. Ryack how much I should get he told me that I did not need very much and that recently he had bought some of the same thing for his wife and it cost him 25 cents. It cost me $2.00 at the College House Pharmacy.

Now apparently, if my arithmetic is correct and Dr. Ryack's pricing is also, this means that the College House Pharmacy made in the vicinity of 800% profit on my small purchase. The difficulty is, of course, that one has no way of checking how correct this pricing is. One simply pays up and shuts up. This, to me, is unjust. To add to the seeming absurdity of the situation, when I mentioned to the pharmacist that the doctor said it would only cost 25 cents, he calmly looked at me and said, "That's interesting," and then he put out his hand for the money.

It is more than interesting. It is alarming.

Is there no way of checking on such things as this? It would seem that the customer no longer has to be right but just to be stupid.

I have already written to the College House Pharmacy and have told them that I would be writing to the CRIMSON hoping that this letter might be published, and hoping also that those who have also received similar treatment might join me in some sort of plea. Have students no recourse to such obvious extravagant overpricing around the Square? Anthony James Fingleton '67