Chemists turn to Aussies for help

Australian pharmacists are offering to help New Zealand set up a scheme to record every purchase of the cold remedy pseudoephedrine on a police-monitored database.

The offer comes as Prime Minister John Key considers a report from his chief science adviser on how to curb the methamphetamine - or P - epidemic. Peter Gluckman's recommendations are believed to include banning the sale of over-the-counter cold and flu tablets that contain the nasal decongestant pseudoephedrine, used in the manufacture of P.

But Gluckman is also believed to have recommended that New Zealand set up a version of the real-time buyer- record scheme, which is operating in Queensland pharmacies under the name Project STOP.

The Queensland programme requires anyone buying products containing pseudoephedrine to produce photo identification. Their details are entered in the pharmacy computer, which is linked to police. Each time someone buys a pseudoephedrine product an alert is triggered, and after the fourth purchase police will interview the buyer.

The programme has resulted in a drop in "pill shopping" in Australia and is also being credited with helping to decrease the number of P labs.

New Zealand Pharmacy Guild CEO Annabel Young says the guild has been lobbying the government to introduce a similar programme for two years without success.

The Australian offer of assistance, which Young says was made in a letter to Key, was prompted by concern that any changes to pseudoephedrine sales here were likely to be mirrored across the Tasman. The pharmacy guilds in both countries want pseudoephedrine products to remain openly available in pharmacies.

Australia is also close to banning sales of the popular painkiller codeine, because the drug has sparked concerns over overuse and addiction, and Young says New Zealand could follow suit. She warns that there is the potential for sweeping changes in the range of drugs available over the counter in the next year.

Meanwhile, experts say a ban on over-the-counter pseudoephedrine products will force cold and flu sufferers to use an inferior substitute and may have little effect on the P trade. A pseudoephedrine ban would see almost 50 products removed from pharmacies.

However, research carried out by the British Pharmacological Society concludes phenylephrine, an alternative decongestant, is a poor substitute, not nearly as effective as pseudoephedrine. The research also notes that studies in the US show that restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine has had little impact on the number of arrests associated with methamphetamine abuse.

Restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine "will deprive the public of a safe and effective nasal decongestant, and force the pharmaceutical industry to replace it with phenylephrine, which may be an ineffective decongestant," the research says.

Auckland GP Dr Jim McVeagh, who writes an influential blog on politics and health under the name MacDoctor, says banning pseudoephedrine would remove "the only nasal decongestant that has any appreciable effect".

However, Young says it is a contentious issue that relies heavily on anecdotal evidence. "There's not a lot of science behind it," she says, adding that "no pharmacist will die in a ditch" for pseudoephedrine.

McVeagh also says that making pseudoephedrine a prescription-only medication would result in more people seeing their doctor, making it more expensive for families and the government.