[DrewADesign]

It’s very location-dependent. I live in a very dense area with many Walgreens and competitors and they’re all about the same. When you drive out into the far suburbs or country, they’re not as bad.

Good independent pharmacies are the only way to go, IMO.

[noduerme]

In my area of Portland, all other Walgreens shut down and all the CVS and Rite Aids shut down in the past few years - post Covid - because the shoplifting and almost weekly armed robberies were so rampant. It's frankly amazing that there's still one Walgreens open, but going there is kind of like walking into an insane asylum. Not that it's dangerous, just incredibly dystopian. The workers are traumatized and miserable. Every single item worth more than $5 is locked up, and even so, there are thieves with backpacks strapped to their chests roaming the aisles, literally every time I go in there, grabbing anything, while the employees just ignore them. Recently I went in to buy Mucinex. I found it in a locked plexiglass cabinet, in front of which was a junkie who was sitting on the floor with no shoes, his nose pressed to the glass, studying the boxes of Mucinex. I had to spend 10 minutes finding a worker to open the cabinet while gently moving the junkie out of the way.

This quarter of the city (inner Southeast) is down to basically 5 pharmacies serving a very densely populated 10 square miles, four of which are in supermarkets (Safeway or Fred Meyer... both terrible). Only one Walgreens is left.

There is a locally owned, independent pharmacy that's owner-operated, about 3 miles away from me, and I've started driving to it. It's the only one in Southeast. The Walgreens is only 5 blocks away from my house, easy to walk to, but I've decided it's worth getting in my car and sitting in traffic to get to the independent one.