My 2025 Goal: No Blister Packs

As we head into a new year, it’s common to read of resolutions for the coming 12 months, wishes for world peace, or prayers for blessings. I have a simpler aspiration. I would dearly love to see the end of blister packs.

You know, those irritating, nearly impossible to crack, nasty creations that cause more frustration than any other kind of “easy to open” packaging on the market.

I refer not to the clamshells that often hold blueberries, other fruits, or assorted breads. No, I’m thinking of the tiny, plastic-encased containers that in theory can be peeled open.

I say theoretically because the method I use 95% of the time—except when I get lucky and manage to catch the foil wrap at just the right angle—is a pair of scissors.

Sometimes I have to cut directly into the plastic covering and maneuver the pill out of its vise-like wrapping to retrieve the prize.

On my most recent effort, I managed to damage about five of the two dozen pills locked away in packaging that even David Copperfield would struggle to open.

A Challenge to Open

According to an AI overview on Google, blister packs became popular in the 1960s for pharmaceutical packaging and were especially useful for birth control pills. (Maybe they were trying to prevent women from actually opening them, but that’s an issue for another day.)

One reason for my pique is the time-consuming process involved in opening a two-dozen pill container.

I constantly ask myself, “What genius thought it would be a good idea to make it so arduous to open these things when they could be simply placed in a bottle and shaken out?”

Whether it’s a cold remedy or something for digestion or gastrointestinal issues, I see no reason to bury them in a vault-like device better suited to encase the gold at Fort Knox.

The Need for Supply

I’m fortunate that I only have to pry open blister packs about once every three months. Still, the unpredictable nature of my use means I have to keep a bottle of pills on the bathroom shelf, stocked with a healthy supply.

A couple months ago, instead of ordering from the over-the-counter supply our health insurer offers, I had my wife pick up a pack at the store.

Instead of the flat package that arrives in the mail and automatically signals blister-package containers inside, she brought home a small box.

Hoping to open it and find a bottle inside with tablets at the ready, I saw … a half-dozen blister packs.

Each contained four pills. Each was as maddeningly complex to open as the ones that come in the mail.

Perhaps the reason few people gripe openly about such challenges is their wish to avoid becoming the object of ridicule.

So, in the spirit of a new year offering up limitless possibilities, I sacrifice my dignity on the altar of Dad jokes.

I’m pleading with manufacturers, drug stores and grocery chains alike: Please scrap the blister packs. End the suffering. It is in your power. Use it and make a brighter and more accessible 2025 for all of us.