I've had an interesting run with Methadone patients recently; I've been threatened, abused and generally spat at by 'Regulars'. Don't get me wrong, I'm a strong advocate for the Methadone/Suboxone programme. On top of the typical attempted manipulation and deceit, I've just had some slightly more confronting stuff than usual; the kind of nonsense that tests your patience.

Firstly, though, here's my two cents. Methadone's an essential harm-minimisation tool, which I firmly believe makes a difference. It's seriously important in rehabilitation and addiction medicine that these patients have an avenue for supervised dosing. I appreciate it's pretty good of the owners out there to cop the associated theft, admin hassle and associated stresses, because many people wouldn't give some of these characters a second look. In my first year on the job, I saw at least one person get completely clean. For me, that was enough to justify the programme; if I owned a pharmacy, I would take Methadone/Suboxone patients.

So, a few weeks ago, the regular shows up. He's pretty calm, as per usual. In fact, the area the pharmacy's in has a distinctly relaxed, holiday feel to the place. He was wearing clothing with an extremely offensive message emblazoned across the chest, arms and back. I suggested that he would be unwelcome the next time he wore the shirt, and gave him his dose. He complained quite bitterly, in most colourful language, that we were discriminating against him (highly ironic, considering the shirt's message). He did, however, apologise to my boss the next day.

Of course, few incidents end with anything even close to an apology. Today, for example, I took a call from another client. Not a nice guy. He used to collect his dose up until last week, when he was banned from the Pharmacy, for reasons I'm unaware of. He phoned to ask if he could get his dose. He wasn't pleased to hear the answer, and swore blue murder down the phone. Here's hoping he doesn't try to come in later today.

These events have reminded me of an incident that happened a few years ago; a regular patient was getting miffed. I think he'd missed a few doses, and as there are restrictions on how many you can miss, his dose was declined. Just to aid in negotiations, he grabs the receipt spike , jumps up on the counter and lunges at the shopgirl. She's fine. He wasn't dosed that day.

And, just to cap it all off, there was a drugs-but-no-cash armed robbery about 800m up the road last week...