Pubdate: Mon, 26 Dec 2005 Source: Courier-Mail, The (Australia) Copyright: 2005 Queensland Newspapers Contact: http://thecouriermail.com.au/extras/forms/letter.htm Website: http://www.thecouriermail.news.com.au/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/98 Author: Emma Chalmers Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) SALES CLAMP ON FLU DRUGS Queenslanders will not be able to buy cold and flu drugs without photo identification or a pharmacist's approval under a new national plan to crack down on illegal drug manufacturers. >From January 1 pharmacy assistants will be banned from selling drugs containing pseudoephedrine and pharmacists themselves will have to record the details and sometimes drivers licence numbers of customers before selling such drugs. They have also been ordered to question unfamiliar and very frequent buyers and suspicious purchases will be monitored by the Pharmacy Guild, police and Queensland Health. The tougher new regulations are designed to stifle the growing number of amphetamine labs, especially in Queensland, which is recognised as the nation's "speed" capital. Medicines containing pseudoephedrine are often used illegally as a precursor to manufacture methamphetamine and it is known that some drug makers have driven from Cairns to Brisbane, stopping at pharmacies to buy flu drugs along the way. The crackdown will only affect pharmacies because cold and flu drugs sold in major supermarkets do not contain pseudoephedrine. While the new laws mean more work for pharmacists and a grilling for customers, Health Minister Stephen Robertson said they were necessary to tackle the drug problem in the state. "We recognise the overwhelming majority of Queenslanders have a genuine therapeutic need for these medications," he said. "But we believe that imposing more stringent point-of-sale controls on these medicines is necessary to help combat the manufacture of illicit drugs in Queensland." Next year, over-the-counter cold and flu tablets containing pseudoephedrine will be reclassified from schedule two to the "pharmacist-only" schedule three and it is believed the Federal Government is also investigating whether to move some to schedule four or prescription-only. More than five illegal drug labs are discovered by police in Queensland every week representing 55 per cent of the national total. Newly elected Queensland Pharmacy Guild president Tim Logan said that while the new laws would be frustrating for pharmacists and customers alike, the administrative interference was necessary to fight the scourge of speed. "It's quite regrettable that we have to do that and inconvenience the general public ," he said. Spokeswoman for the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia, Geraldine Moses, pleaded with the public to be patient with pharmacists when the laws come into effect. "This will create a logistical nightmare during the cough and cold season," she said. "We wish there was another way to try to handle the problem of abuse and the illegal manufacture of amphetamines." She said it would have been better to test the new laws first and implement a monitoring system to judge the effectiveness of the changes. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin