RANGELEY – The state pharmacy board has revoked pharmacist Joey McLafferty’s license to practice. His license was suspended in mid-October.

A consent agreement was reached between the state and McLafferty, 73, a pharmacist for nearly 50 years whose license was to expire Dec. 31.

The board acted after three complaints were filed against him for misfilled prescriptions and incorrect medication instructions.

The agreement cannot be appealed and is effective until modified or rescinded.

McLafferty closed his family drugstore, Riddle’s Pharmacy, after the pharmacy board suspended his license.

To compound his problems, McLafferty also was charged by Rangeley police with operating in violation of conditions of his driver’s license. McLafferty had pleaded guilty in May to drunken driving on Dec. 29, 2006, and was stopped Oct. 22 on suspicion of drunken driving and registered a .07 blood alcohol level, which violated his conditional license.

“I’m doing fine,” McLafferty said Thursday. “It feels kind of strange not going to work every day but I’ll get over it.”

Many people in town stood behind McLafferty, whose family had owned the drugstore for decades, since the pharmacist’s troubles started three years ago.

“I hope to sell the building,” McLafferty said of his store on Main Street. He’s also hoping to sell the pharmacy business but doesn’t know if there is room for two drugstores in town. A new pharmacy opened at the IGA building in the past couple of years.

McLafferty said he has received many cards and letters of support for his dedication to the community.

“It makes you feel good,” McLafferty said.

On Nov. 14, McLafferty signed a consent agreement with the state, which was signed Tuesday by Maine Board of Pharmacy President Lori McKeown and Assistant Attorney General Andrew Black.

The agreement states that on May 24, McLafferty misfilled a prescription for a 500-milligram dosage of Valtrex (an anti-viral medication) by dispensing a vial containing 1,000-milligram pills. When the patient returned the pills to McLafferty’s drugstore, he put them back into the store’s stock for subsequent dispensing.

On July 24, McLafferty erroneously dispensed a prescription for Levothyroxine (a thyroid gland medication) to a patient who didn’t have a prescription for the medicine, the agreement states.

On the same day, he also dispensed a prescription for Lipitor tablets with a label that contained the erroneous instruction, “One puff in each nostril 2 to 3 times a day.”

McLafferty acknowledged the accusations were true, according to the agreement.

McLafferty was already in the process of completing a year of probation that began Jan. 23 after he admitted to misfilling a prescription with the wrong brand of fast-acting insulin in August 2006. That mistake also violated state pharmacy rules.

Prior to that, McLafferty had his license temporarily suspended in 2005 after the pharmacy board found that he committed numerous state and federal violations that led to the diversion of prescription drugs to local teenagers. The teenagers had worked for McLafferty and were criminally charged in connection with stealing prescription drugs from his store.

At the time, the pharmacy board required him to receive alcohol and drug counseling and issued a letter of guidance urging him to refrain from drinking any alcoholic beverage prior to and during the work day.