Members of the Wyoming Board of Pharmacy felt so threatened by what had transpired at their meeting Wednesday that when they reconvened Thursday, they met separately from the public.
On Wednesday, a large crowd of people turned out to speak about the suspension of a Cheyenne pharmacy’s license, but weren’t allowed to comment. The denial of any public input resulted in yelling and screaming and law enforcement physically removing a woman from the meeting.
Most of those were there to support the business, City Drug.
“The board met in a separate room so that they could conduct their business as published on the agenda without interruption and for their safety,” Wyoming Board of Pharmacy Executive Director Matt Martineau told Cowboy State Daily in an email about changing where the board met Thursday.
Martineau pointed out that Thursday’s meeting was broadcast live in a different public meeting room at the Capitol and a meeting link was also published on the board's website for those who wanted to attend virtually.
Also Thursday, City Drug owner and pharmacist Kelsey James filed a petition with Laramie County District Court contesting the state board’s decision to suspend her license. The petition argues that the board’s decision isn’t supported by substantial evidence.
James declined to comment to Cowboy State Daily when reached Thursday.
Cheyenne resident Stephanie Laubhan-Peter, a retired nurse, was at the meeting Wednesday, which she described as “tense” and “very heated.”
She said the state board did not greet the public warmly from the get-go.
“Ooh the vibe,” she remarked. “Ooh, it was chilly.”
At a meeting last week, the board had ordered City Drug to stop filling prescriptions after alleging that the business made a compounded medication and dispersed it to a patient in Wheatland with false prescription labels. Since March, City Drug had already been under an advisement to not to compound any medications.
Compounding is when a pharmacist or someone at a pharmacy mixes, alters ingredients or otherwise combines medications. It’s a practice that’s not approved by the Federal Drug Administration, although the agency says it can help some patients who can’t take an FDA-approved drug.
Although the business was told it has until Oct. 10 to finalize any outstanding business or transfer prescriptions, Laubhan-Peter said it’s already stopped filling prescriptions, although it can still sell over-the-counter prescriptions and other items.
When Cowboy State Daily visited the store during the lunch hour Thursday, there were no customers in the business that employs 26 people.
Drama Unfolds
Laubhan-Peter, who is a personal friend of a City Drug pharmacist, and others were deeply frustrated that they weren’t allowed to comment about the suspension, which she opposes.
A retired nurse, Laubhan-Peter said one of the reasons that City Drug was able to gather the more than 100 supporters that attended Wednesday’s meeting was because one of their pharmacists, Jackson Quick, stopped a pharmacy from being robbed in 2014 and was involved in fighting another armed robbery at that pharmacy in 2016.
“When you go after a hometown hero, that’s not good,” Laubhan-Peter said.
When people first arrived at the meeting, Laubhan-Peter said they were given sign-in sheets, which gave her the false impression they would be allowed to comment later on.
She said the board never said at the start of the meeting that the public wouldn’t be allowed to comment on the City Drug situation, nor did it provide any alternative mechanism for submitting comments.
The public was not formally told they would not be allowed to speak until the City Drug topic came up during the meeting.
“I think most people would have been OK if they gave other options,” Laubhan-Peter said. “People don’t like to be silenced.”
Wyoming Board of Pharmacy Senior Investigator Liz Wood and board member Jonathan Beattie told Cowboy State Daily that the reason public comment wasn’t allowed is because the investigation into City Drug is still ongoing and that public comment might unfairly bias the board and qualify as an ex parte communication.
“It’s because there’s an open investigation and the board is the decision-maker on it,” Beattie said.
Wood also clarified that the City Drug suspension is not a final order, and that the business will still have a right to a contested case hearing. Beattie said he doesn’t know when the investigation will be complete.
Finding out that they would not be able to speak deeply frustrated many in the room, Laubhan-Peter said.
She also said a City Drug employee dressed in a suit appeared to be purposely riling people up in the crowd. This man can be briefly seen shaking his fist as the woman who was removed was confronted by law enforcement.
“That guy fueled the fire,” Laubhan-Peter said. “He made things worse. Everybody was already tense, that guy made things worse.”
Situation Escalates
Most of the board then took a break and left the room, with member Tosha Williamson the only one who remained, Laubhan-Peter said.
While they were out, a few City Drug supporters like Sally Whelan got up to speak in support of the business.
In a video of the conflict posted to Facebook, Whelan said it wasn’t James who made the prescription mistake, but rather another pharmacist at City Drug. She also said James actively worked with investigators to correct the situation and told her what had happened.
“Kelsey did not have to tell us any of that because the mistake did not involve our facility,” Whelan said, who works at the Davis Hospice Center in Cheyenne. “She told us because she’s a part of our team and an honest medical professional.”
As Whelan was speaking, most of the board members returned to their seats behind her and member Brenda Upton gaveled the meeting back in session. Whelan did not stop speaking despite multiple pounds of the gavel from Upton, which drew a few cries from the audience for Whelan to stop.
At this point, Upton can be seen calling in Wyoming Highway Patrol troopers to remove Whelan.
When a trooper reached Whelan, he motioned her toward the door so that she would leave on her own inhibition.
The crowd erupted in boos and jeers against the trooper, with one woman yelling out “that’s a sacred right” and a man saying, “you guys are ridiculous.”
“Where’s our voice? Do we not get a voice? Are we nothing?” another man yelled. “You work for us, right?”
Laubhan-Peter called this response chaotic and “craziness,” and said she felt empathy for the troopers who were just doing their job.
The trooper then started physically moving Whelan out of the room with his hand on her left arm. After walking like this for about 10 feet, Whelan removed herself from the trooper and directed him to let go of her arm.
“Let go of my arm, I am not attacking you,” she said, wagging her finger at the trooper. “Do not touch me. Do not touch me.”
Whelan then stated that she wanted to go back into the room to grab her personal belongings, to which the troopers refused and started physically restraining her, drawing loud yells from Whelan and the audience.
“Let go of me, don’t touch me!” she yelled at the trooper, once again wagging her finger at the officer and pushing him away as he gestured for her to leave the room.
A member of the audience volunteered to grab Whelan’s items as she was forcibly escorted out of the room.
The meeting was then adjourned until Thursday.
As bad as things were Wednesday, Laubhan-Peter believes the board’s decision to meet away from the public Thursday was an overreaction and that nobody at Wednesday’s meeting would have caused them physical harm.
“I don’t think anyone there would have let physical harm happen to anyone else there,” she said.
Ticket Issued
On Thursday, Wyoming Highway Patrol announced in a press release that they issued a citation against Whelan for disrupting government facilities, a misdemeanor offense.
“The Wyoming Highway Patrol urges the public to respect the guidelines of public meetings and to refrain from causing disturbances, especially when such meetings are not open for public comment,” the press release reads.
Whelan did not immediately respond to Cowboy State Daily’s request for comment.
“It really seems like City Drug shot themselves in the foot by having us all being there, but they wanted the support,” Laubhan-Peter said. “Maybe they felt they were in danger but there was armed patrolmen there.”
What’s It About?
According to minutes from the board’s March 14 meeting, Wood found that although City Drug did not have the necessary equipment to perform sterile compounding, the pharmacy had been compounding semaglutide, a form of insulin commonly prescribed for diabetics.
According to the Federal Drug Administration, a drug may be compounded for a patient who cannot be treated with an FDA-approved medication, such as a patient who has an allergy to a certain dye and needs a medication to be made without it, or an elderly patient or a child who cannot swallow a tablet or capsule and needs a medicine in a liquid dosage form.
James had argued to the board she didn’t know she wasn’t allowed to do this and quickly corrected the problem, which she was commended for doing at a Pharmacy Board meeting later in March.
According to minutes from the meeting held last week, Wood told the board that a patient had received two prescription bottles of compounded medication from a pharmacy in Wheatland. The prescription was for a City Drug patient, for which the Cheyenne pharmacy sent the medication to the Wheatland pharmacy to be compounded, which it then delivered back to City Drug.
But the two bottles had different labels and staff at the South Street Pharmacy believed one to be false, Wood said, adding she suspected City Drug had illegally compounded one of the medications because South Street was unable to make the second prescription.
Laubhan-Peter said she was told this had happened because City Drug had packaged the prescription prior to being told it could not do the compounding anymore in March.
“I don’t think in my opinion it’s that big of a deal,” she said. “There were no reports of any adverse reactions to what City Drug has dispensed.”
Tom Rumpke, an attorney representing City Drug, said he did not know where the prescriptions came from and argued the infraction doesn’t justify shutting down the business.
Brian Marvel, senior assistant attorney general and prosecuting attorney for the board’s Investigative Committee, argued that even one case of falsifying a label constitutes a public risk.
Laubhan-Peter said it will be a significant blow for Cheyenne if City Drug goes out of business, as it’s one of only two independent pharmacies in town and has contracts with four of the five hospices in the city, which could become null and void due to the board’s actions. She prefers to go to City Drug over big box pharmacies like Walgreens and Walmart because of the personalized nature of their services and because they offer home delivery.
“I think they’re (board) going above and beyond, maybe they’re trying to prove a point,” she said.
Contact Leo Wolfson at leo@cowboystatedaily.com
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
