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Pharmacist admits she `self-medicated' By CHRIS BRISTOL Caught on video, a former Medford pharmacist admitted in court Tuesday that she "self-medicated" without a doctor's prescription. In dispute was which drugs Gloria Stadther stole and why. Stadther, 45, was placed on 18 months of unsupervised probation after she pleaded guilty to a single charge of third-degree theft. Jackson County Judge Patricia Crain also ordered Stadther to perform 24 hours of community service. In exchange for her plea, prosecutors dropped another theft charge and a single count of unlawfully obtaining a controlled substance. She was arrested last summer after management at NCS Healthcare, a licensed-care pharmacy, installed a secret video camera to confirm suspicions that an employee was stealing from a prescription cabinet. Deputy District Attorney Debbie Minder said the video caught Stadther red-handed. "She would take stuff from the cabinet and not log it in," Minder explained. "Then you can see her walking away, popping it down." In court Tuesday, Stadther admitted that she stole a diarrhea-control prescription drug called Lotomil. She said she needed it for "self-medication." Prosecutors believe she also stole a Valium-like tranquilizer called Lorazapam -- better known by the brand name Ativan -- but Stadther denied it and blamed the pharmacy for poor inventory control. "There were all sorts of discrepancies when I was there and when I was not there," she told the court. Dawn Baker, a staff pharmacist at NCS, disputed Stadther's version of events. The pharmacy carefully tracks drugs by computer and logbooks, she said. "Someone obviously realized there was a problem," she said. "They used a camera to solve the problem." Gary Schnabel, compliance director for the state Board of Pharmacy in Portland, said pharmacies are tightly regulated by the state and fewer than a dozen pharmacists a year are disciplined for misusing prescription medication. The reason why is simple, he said. "It's a real high-risk environment," he said. "If you've got a headache, you've got a store-full of stuff. Pharmacies have to be real careful." After her arrest, Stadther was put on probation by the pharmacy board for five years and must submit to 12 random drug tests over the next three years. Baker said Stadther resigned from NCS after her arrest. She now works for a pharmacy in Ashland. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA