Last week’s robbery of the Tooele Walgreens would have been frightening enough were it an isolated incident. After all, a pharmacist being held up at gunpoint for methadone, police officers facing an armed standoff, and customers and employees feeling terrorized is far from an everyday occurrence. However, put into a broader context, the robbery is even scarier for what it says about the increasing problem of prescription drug abuse and the lengths some are willing to go to get their hands on these drugs.

Walgreens is certainly not the first pharmacy to be robbed. In the first two years Williams Family Pharmacy in Grantsville was open, it was the target for three robbery attempts, according to Det. Dan Chamberlain of the Grantsville Police Department. In January 2008, Birch Family Pharmacy in Tooele was robbed by a masked gunman for the prescription painkiller OxyContin, and Soma, a muscle relaxant.

Police also see increasing evidence of other crimes related to prescription drug abuse on a constant basis — everything from dealing these drugs for profit to “doctor shopping” for prescriptions to DUIs. Many of the perpetrators are ordinary folks who were initially prescribed narcotics like OxyContin, Percocet and Methadone by physicians for legitimate health reasons, but who later became addicted. Others are teens who began experimenting with leftover drugs. As the ranks of such addicts grow, so too grows the black market for these drugs and the crimes associated with them.

There’s also a health cost to be paid. According to a 2007 study by the state Division of Substance Abuse and Mental Health, the rate of emergency room encounters with prescription narcotics in Tooele County rose from 11.3 per 100,000 people in 2001 to 42.3 per 100,000 people in 2006. That’s just less than a fourfold increase in only five years.

There are steps citizens can take to help fight prescription drug abuse. First off — and this falls into the realm of common sense — patients should listen to their bodies and stop taking painkillers when the pain is gone. Second, parents need to make sure kids don’t have easy access to prescription drugs. And unused medications should be disposed off properly. The Tooele County Sheriff’s Office operates anonymous prescription drug drop-off boxes in Tooele, Grantsville and Wendover to curtail the supply of such drugs on the streets.

We can’t leave the fight against prescription drug abuse to law enforcement. If we fail to clamp down on this problems ourselves, as individuals, we run the risk of producing more addicts — and seeing more terrifying scenes like the one that played out at Walgreens last week.