As of January, 2009, it will be legal for British Columbian pharmacists to renew prescriptions, alter dosages and dispense substitute drugs without the oversight of a doctor. This announcement is on the heals of a recent hidden-camera report that exposed Vancouver pharmacists as having dispensed kickbacks along with prescription drugs. Pharmacies were giving up to $10/wk for prescriptions filled if the drugs were dispensed daily (entitling pharamacists to a daily dispensing fee, rather than a single fee for a long-term prescription). The guilty pharmacies are on the downtown east-side (dtes), with their primary clientèle being addicts living on the streets of the dtes. Consider this, pharmacists dispensing methadone to help addicts control their addiction, only to provide them with the means to purchase a 10-rock at the end of the week to continue their addiction. Now they can even write up the prescription to keep the cycle alive, after receving their gifts and gratuities for switching patients from one pharmaceutical drug to another.  In the end, the patient continues to suffer.