Drugstore Cowboys Ransack Ruston Pharmacy

Drugstore cowboys raided a Ruston pharmacy, stealing over half a million dollars in painkillers.

Five thieves stole thousands of prescription drugs, like Oxycotin and Lortabs from The Clinic Pharmacy, sometime last week early Friday.

Now Crimestoppers and the business are offering money for an arrest and conviction.

The business reports that burglars made their way in through an empty business next door.

They also say the thieves clipped the wires so the alarm wouldn’t go off. Surveillance video shows the theft took less than three minutes--over $500,000 worth of painkillers vanished.

Jarmon says this isn’t the first time—burglars hit up the pharmacy about 7 or 8 months ago.

She says the burglars weren’t as sophisticated—they threw a brick through the glass and came through the front door.

She isn’t sure if the two burglaries are connected.

The phones are always ringing; technicians always have their hands full at the Clinic Pharmacy of Ruston.

But if you look closer at the signs outside the door, right by the register, and the patched up holes in the bathroom and in a storage room, you can see this business was the target of painkiller bandits.

“The street value of what they took was $500- to 800,000,” said M’Lee Jarmon, pharmacy technician.

Oxycotin, Lortabs, morphine—if it sells for top-dollar on the streets, it was swiped right off the shelves.

“It’s dangerous,” said Jarmon. “Absolutely unbelievable to have thousands and thousands of pills on the streets.”

Now the business is offering $2,000 per arrest and conviction, on top of Crimestopper’s $1,000 reward. The business reports that they’re tightening up security.