Dissent on making pseudoephedrine prescription only
October 9th, 2009 at 6:24 am by David FarrarThe very sensible MacDoctor disagrees with the decision. He blogs:
Unfortunately Mr. Key is being poorly advised on this matter by his science advisor, Peter Gluckman – who has no medical qualifications, BTW
The strike through is after a commenter pointed out Sir Peter actually graduated medical school, and spent two years as a doctor before going into research. He is also a former Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the University of Auckland.
Once again, I link to a real scientific study on phenylephrine and pseudoephedrine so the Sir Peter can actually read something useful on the subject. There are dozens of others, but this one is freely available to be read in full. All the scientific evidence (as opposed to the anecdotal ones) shows that phenylephrine is essentially useless as a nasal decongestant. If you want relief from your cold, you are going to have to use pseudoephedrine. All that making this a prescription item will do is make the treatment of a cold more expensive for people. It will also move the monitoring of drug seekers from the pharmacy to the GP, who is even less likely to spot the serial script seeker. “Shoppers” for pseudoephedrine will just move from doctor to doctor, gathering scripts.
Stuff also reports dissent:
The Pharmaceutical Society’s chief pharmacist adviser, Euan Galloway, said the proposed replacement, phenylephrine – which Mr Key said was a “safe and effective alternative” – was not as good.
“Ask any community pharmacist and they’ll tell you they may make one sale [of a phenylephrine medicine], but never again,” Mr Galloway said.
Phenylephrine had a very high “first past metabolism effect”, which meant most of the drug was metabolised or rendered inactive before it reached the parts of the body where it was needed.
October 9th, 2009 at 6:53 am
This government has been so very well played by the Paul Holmes brigade. Oh the tragedy of P! The tragedy! Paul is good at communicating tragedy & hype and this government has just lapped it up. Suckers.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:07 am
That pharnacy guild chap is right. I brought some phenylephrine based product earlier in the year to try it when I had a bad head cold. I would have been better bunching up the $20 note and sticking it up my nose. Two hours later and no better I went back to the same pharmacy and got a pseudoephedrine based product and was able to keep working.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:14 am
Whether or not, we no longer get to choose. Nanny knows best!
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:17 am
Greenfly – I would have thought that would have been a comfort to you.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:39 am
There seems to be a lot of snottiness over snotty noses. Yeah, this measure may or may not help in the fight against PO, and won’t help in the fight against colds, but the dissent is missing a few points.
At greater effort and expense, being vetted by both doctor and pharmacist. So it surely will limit abuse to an extent.
Colds are an inconvenience. But do we race to the pharmacist too quickly? We seem to have become pop-a-pill pansies. Every quick fix can have possible down sides.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:48 am
The proposed changes are just not very bright, and they deprive the law-abiding population of the only effective cold remedy currently available. As for getting a GP appointment for a cold in the middle of winter, dream on.
Did anyone even consider a simple alternative recording system instead? Such as – pharmacists to record all sales: Product name, no. of units, N/Addr, Passport or Licence ID type, ID serial number.
Enter directly into Excel (or a notepad type application, comma-separated). And you can be sure the next version of the pharmacist software would incorporate this facility.
Send CSV info directly to Monitoring Central once a week for collation and passing on to the rozzers.
Don’t allow OTC sales by pharmacists who can’t/won’t comply. The price would go up a few dollars to cover extra costs, but the customer would be spared the cost of a GP prescription or visit, which is much higher.
What could be more do-able?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:52 am
The slippery slope towards more and more nanny-statism continues.
The politicians and their advisors will give us a variety of excuses to justify more controls and legislation, but the truth is their actions continue to erode our liberties and freedom.
National has so far shown to be little different from socialist Labour. It falsely claims to be for individual responsibility.
Vote:Similar to Labour, the vapid Tories have mastered the art of double-speak.
October 9th, 2009 at 8:00 am
How does a state fix everything the people demand be fixed without being a “nanny” state?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:15 am
Once again the cynically pragmatic pollies scrape a high visibility anodyne from the base of the barrel: “Fighting P by making cold remedies prescription only”.
What a laughable distraction and syllogism!
Meanwhile mainstream P Labs get on with business by smuggling in industrial strength ingredients in bulk, 44 gallon drum quantities through NZ’s seaports.
Only in nanny-state NZ…..
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:23 am
I’m staying in Hamilton for a few days with a cold that has now gone on for nearly 2 weeks – pharmacists here seem to have jumped the BANNED gun. Where do I get ordinary old pseudo based sudafed in Hamilton?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:25 am
My point yesterday, you were dismissing any scientific dissent to the point wherre your effort on this one was just cheerleading. Gluckman is wrong and everyone except Paul Holmes knows it.
[DPF: And when I see people with credibility (which is not anonymous posters) disagree, I blog it as I have done today. So how is that cheerleading?]
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Zzzz, wake me up when the diversionary politics have finished.
No land tax.
No CGT on housing.
Add stamp duty.
Remove income tax offsets for investment property.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:29 am
The P business model is based, at it core, on demand from consumers who are addicted. Repeat sales are a certainty. High prices because of lack of competition (in a sense that within the local area there will only a few suppliers). Excellent profit/risk ratio. No wonder it gets copied all over the country.
How about we focus on removing the demand? There are many programs that deal with addiction, so offer addicts a safe way to get themselves off the drug. Remove the demand, and the whole business case collapses. Combine this with good public service advertisements (make them really shocking). plus say a ‘dob in the P suppliers’ with large cash payments. and we can look at removing future demand as well as increasing the profit/risk ratio.
I also assume (I’m an optimist here) that the police, through their intelligence methods, know who are the producers of P are. After all they have gang members on their database. As well as their informants. How many raids would it take to remove current P producers, and roll up the supply chain?
[DPF: Considerable money has also been announced for reducing demand through funding treatment]
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:41 am
Paul Holmes did himself no favours on Close Up last night. He came across as a demented ranter, with a barrow to push. Not impressive. He did, however, say that locally sold (rather than illegally imported) pseudoephedrine accounted for a third of P found in raids. That is a bit disconcerting if true. Although a statement like that can have other interpretations – for example the local cooks are amateurs and easier to catch.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:47 am
Nice one annie – You seem to come from the “don’t give me more problems, give me a solution” school.
Monitoring would seem to be key here as identification of manufacturers goes to the source of stopping the influx of product to market. THEN we can target money spent at addiction treatment.
LC – wouldn’t a “dob in the P dealer” type reward system only increase violence as the manufacturers would start using standover tactics as well as pure force to intimidate the public?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:48 am
Any method of suppressing home bake speed is good.
Enough middle class whining.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 8:57 am
lock them all up and let me have my sudafed
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:02 am
So here’s my solution to this.
Leave OTC Pseudoephedrine, available but constrain purchase to 1 single standalone creditcard transaction, and to a limit of one purchase per year. It’s a relatively simply back-end software enhancement to support this.
If anyone does not have a credit card, or requires more than their single purchase allocation then a prescription would be required.
Probably more than 95% of Pseudoephedrine sale for legitimate personal use remains unimpacted, while repeat purchasers – the group most likely to be P cooks – are forced to seek prescriptions.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Nice job, getstaffed
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:33 am
I see that the Coldrex that sorted out my blocked nose this winter and allowed me to sleep is on the list. It was brilliant stuff! So now I’m going to have to queue up at the doctors while feeling like shit. And waste the doctors time, since he’s going to go from being a highly trained diagnoser of illness to someone who spends the winter months writing out endless prescriptions for cold medicine while supposedly looking out for people setting up a drug lab. And I’m going to have to pay about $50 for the privilege. Thanks a lot Key and Gluckman! The only people who won’t have trouble getting hold of pseudoephedrine are the P manufacturers, who will continue to import most of what they need in bulk.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:44 am
We can’t all be as cold resistant as you. I usually only buy a pseudoephedrine based product once a year or less, depending on how bad a cold I have. My last one was when I was in a different town, and could not take the time off. What am I supposed to do then? Try driving home to Wellington when I could barely see to get a prescription from my doctor?
This is all a set-up for the eventual “banning” of the product completely. In a few years the numbers of people on P will be the same as they are now, and the response will be to make pseudoephedrine illegal and unavailable.
I like Whale’s idea of sending Key all your saved up snotty tissues. I have a fucking big nose and with a good cold go through a lot of tissues.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:46 am
Sounds like the review of this topic could have gone with more consultation by some of the valid concerns, good ideas here. Mind you, I admire a government for trying to do something direct about a problem in society. It will always be the case that when the government tries to change something they will get lambasted from one direction or another — at least we’re actually talking about potential solutions now. Anyway, people with colds should stay at home rather than taking amphetamines to keep working while passing on their germs to everybody they meet…
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:49 am
davidp said: So now I’m going to have to queue up at the doctors while feeling like shit. And waste the doctors time, since he’s going to go from being a highly trained diagnoser of illness to someone who spends the winter months writing out endless prescriptions for cold medicine while supposedly looking out for people setting up a drug lab. And I’m going to have to pay about $50 for the privilege.
And transmit the virus to everyone else in the doctor’s waiting room.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:00 am
Toad>And transmit the virus to everyone else in the doctor’s waiting room.
Actually, a lot of people who can’t easily take time off work who might have grabbed a packet of something on their way to the office won’t be bothered to book themselves a doctor’s appointment. But they’ll still go to work and spread their cold to all their colleagues.
If every person in NZ ends up taking, say, three extra days off work because of this cold medicine ban, then we’re looking at a loss of over one percent of GDP. That’s like spending a couple of billion bucks a year, for no other result than to make drug manufacturers import a slightly higher quantity of their production ingredients.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Agree with you entirely on this one davidp.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:22 am
Isn’t this response to what nearly all of us agree is a scourge, looking ineffective and severely inconvenient to a large number of us, no more or less than could be expected from policy largely driven by a person, in this case, Sir Peter Gluckman , who with all due respect would have absolutely no Idea of most of the ramifications of his solutions because of his total detachment from the reality, social commercial and political. FFS he lives in academia and that should disqualify him as a source of effective policy here.
Vote:Wrong Mr Key in many ways.
October 9th, 2009 at 10:38 am
Prime Minister Key has put his foot firmly on the throats of users of pseudoephedrine.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:40 am
Ask any chronic hay fever sufferer, how effective phenyledrine is. It simply has no effect on severe symptoms. Actifed always worked wonders for short term relief. Now I’m stuck for life taking a steroid based treatment instead, which is not preferable. Also I hated buying actifed, as if the chemist didn’t know me, it became an ordeal purchasing it. They always tried to push the other shit on me. I find it hard to believe that there is any relevant supply of P being made from these pills. The real players wouldn’t waste their time doing it that way, cos it’s too small time & indiscreet.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:41 am
“Shoppers” for pseudoephedrine will just move from doctor to doctor, gathering scripts.”
“At greater effort and expense, being vetted by both doctor and pharmacist. So it surely will limit abuse to an extent.”
Hmph, if my clients use the same doctors who seem to be only too happy to put able bodied people (my clients!) on the sickness benefit then it shouldn’t be too difficult to get a script out of them for sudafed as well.
But Whaleoil is right when he says that this will only fix the small time cooks. The big time stuff will still come in from overseas. Anybody who has dealt with bodybuilders charged with possession or importation of ephedrine can testify to that!
And that PE crap really doesn’t work. Tried it once, never again.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Do any small time cooks become big time crooks?
Vote:Are any small time cookers hookers?
Do customers of small time cooks become customers of big time crooks?
October 9th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Paul Holmes is telling fibs. Prof Gluckman’s report notes that “at least ten percent” of meth lab busts involve over the counter meds. These would mainly be the Ma and Pa personal use operations who might also supply to pay the bills. They are not the main suppliers. It’s the speed equivalent of homebake.
As for the efficacy of this figleaf policy of restricting pseudoephedrine, I’d draw your attention to ESR clan lab specialist Dr Keith Bedford. In a recent release at the Science Media Centre, he noted the ingenuity of meth cooks in their pursuit of product.
Meth has a mature, entrenched and still lucrative market. Gluckman estimates it as a $1 billion a year trade. Throwing a few tens of millions of taxpayer dollars on a couple of band aids will not make the slightest bit of difference.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:56 am
Funny thing is I think the right and left here are both agreeing this is a terrible decision. I am all for dealing with P, but the simple fact is where there is demand there will be supply. Other drugs where all main precursors (for example MDMA) are banned, but yet can be easily sourced prove this point.
All this will do is make normal peoples lives worse. DPF you are normally the champaining the whole cost vs benefit arguments. I think here the unsustantiated benefit (reduction in supply supposidly) is outweighed by the loss of producitvity and not feeling shit by 95% of the population.
Also as for doctors prescriptions, not sure about you but to get to a doc I normally have to wait at least a day.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:01 am
And in cold/flu season you are lucky to get an appointment in three days.
I can almost see Key sitting in his office looking down on the shuffling, sneezing masses saying “Suffer, little plebs, it is good for your souls – if not your sinuses”
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Brian – an edit, if I may, …looking down his nose … on the shuffling, sneezing masses…
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:07 am
When you have toad, Labour, The Standard, philu, and village idiot attacking the Nats for nanny-state policies, you know something is wrong..
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:13 am
I occasionally need pseudoephedrine based cold tablets. The chemists asks for my driver’s licence and puts my details on a database. I understand that this goes to a central database. If this is the case it should minimize the problem of the cold tablets being used to manufacture P. Is the new law going to be anymore effective than microchipping dogs or the ban on smacking?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Chuck – no it wont. Which is why in a few years pseudoephedrine will be banend completely – which if I read Gluckman’s report right – is something he would favour.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:26 am
So far Gluckman has scored 0/2 for control freak stupidity. The third strike should have him out on his ear.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Pete George:
1. Rarely.
2. Not in my experience. Every cook I have dealt with has been a male (I know, they can be hookers too. But they weren’t.)
3. Yes. Which is why I think we should automatically imprison people for simple possession of illicit drugs, as well as dealing or manufacturing. Hit demand as well as supply. And I include cannabis in that, as I have had many clients through whose entire life has been blighted by their constant use of cannabis. I don’t accept the ‘victimless crime’ argument for it at all. But that is for another day.
Nickb: very good point!
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:49 am
Thanks for your insight. But on this we have crossed wires, wrong sort of hooker. How much of a part do the small time cooks/crooks play in hooking people on drugs?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:57 am
So you saw the backlash, and looked for a way to backpedal, without having to admit ernesto was right?
How does a link from an anonymous poster affect the credibility of a scientific trial published in a medical journal?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Pete George: Ah, I see.
I haven’t any real knowledge of my clients ‘hooking’ people onto drugs at all. Most of my experience is that the use of drugs is entirely voluntary. Certainly none of those clients who have been serious addicts went into drug use with their eyes open and a knowledge of what it can do. Nobody expects to be really caught by it, though. That is the problem with P, because so many people will use it socially but a number of them will be hooked pretty early on with it. And it is really expensive compared to most drugs! A large number of the dealers/suppliers/cooks I have dealt with have also been users. I am not sure I buy into the idea of users being ‘lured’ into drug using. I certainly haven’t heard of it in my discussions with those involved in the business.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
If someone wishes to take P that is their business and the State should not be trying to prevent them from doing so.
Mr Holmes (and numerous other handwringing parents) need to look at their own failings as parents, rather than blaming drugs dealers, for their current problems.
What Mr Key is doing is an attack on personal freedoms and he is quite wrong; sick people should not be inconvenienced because of the ingredients in flu tablets.
http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 12:47 pm
“And it is really expensive compared to most drugs!”
Now why on earth would that be, I wonder?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
Agreed Elijah.
There is clearly a case of guilt on Holmes’ part.
Shame on you JK, I for one thought you were better than this, we didn’t vote for more of the same last year.
Vote:And we certainly didn’t vote for a party that has toad, philu, Labour and the Standard attacking it for being nanny state and breaching our civil liberties…..
October 9th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
This policy is proof that National Ltd, the police, and the Anti-P industry don’t want a solution. For the Anti-P industry the policy appears as some sort of victory for their efforts yet does nothing to reduce its “market”, the police get additional funding and powers over the citizen, while National Ltd ensures its beloved underclass is left fractured and suffering on the margins of political debate.
Ironically, the introduction of the light bulbs Labour were promoting would have had a greater impact on reducing P use.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
“If someone wishes to take P that is their business and the State should not be trying to prevent them from doing so.”
Vote:Elijah
.. their business…becomes our business,when we are burgled ,when loved one’s fall prey to gun wielding P addled lunatic’s,when our grandkids go hungry cause their mum/dad needs P…
October 9th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Sbk – do you get burgled, fall prey to gun wielding lunatics or have hungry grandchildren because of cigarettes/nicotine addiction?
No, you do not; nicotine is extremely addictive (as someone who quit smoking 14 weeks ago I can assure you of that! ha ha!) but it is LEGAL.
If P and heroin and other drugs were legal not only would the price collapse (eliminating the burglary aspects of it), but it would save a considerable amount of money currently being spent (on the Constabulary, customs, the health system, prisons etc) trying to hold back the tide; some of the money saved could be put into treatment programmes to help solve addiction problems.
http://www.nightcitytrader.blogspot.com
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 4:23 pm
The scattergun conspiracy. No one wants to do any good, just build their own empires. If the police started arresting druggies and politicians started caring about anyone suddenly everything would be fixed.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I am really pissed at key, he has taken away a usefull anti-cold drug from everybody in the misguided attempt to influence p usage. This policy is retarded, useless, knee-jerk and unfair. One would expect John Key to be more intelligent than this, however this policy is suggesting hes as sharp as a marble or as honest as a man who says he likes Hooter’s for the food.
What effect has banning drugs had?? Does it work? Does it decrease drug use? Does it decrease the cost incurred on society?
Can anyone point to emperical evidence to suggest a positive influence of making drug use illegal?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Ah, yes – the use of the word “conspiracy” to ignore the arguments, distort comments and discredit those who disagree. But, hey, lets have another look at the facts:
1. This policy will have negligible, if any, impact on P usage, manufacture and/or distribution
2. Those working in the Anti-P industry will still have their “market”
3. The underclass will continue to suffer disproportionately from the impact of P
4. The police get extra funding and additional powers over the citizen
5. Prohibition has never worked
6. The government knows this.
Now, you join the dots and tell me what you come up with?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
I think the police and the government know more about it than you.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
A pity, then, that National Ltd® feels unable to trust the public with neither the reasoning nor the facts for this new “iniative” in the war against drugs. How one can go to war against a noun is another thing, but the only conclusion one can reach in this information vacuum is that it really doesn’t want to solve the P problem. In fact, John Key seems quite comfortable with the situation so long as the police get more power and more victims are created.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
It’s about time Nat ministers in general started to make doorstops out of the govt dept activism being served up on their desks. Sir Humphrey’s proteges seem to be in pretty good control in this Nat govt. I think Gluckman will prove too wet even for this happy middle road fiddle here fiddle there gummint. But I can’t really see Key taking the high ground and offering Gluckman an early return to academia
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 9:23 pm
I just read the following:
“If the drugs were to become prescription-only all pharmacies would have to stock them, making all pharmacies a target for criminals again. Currently, not everyone has them,”
John key is a backstabbing *&%$*&# #^%$ (use your own imagination for the words I’m thinking). What a dumb-ass, what was he thinking with this knee jerk piece of crap law.
I never thought I would say this but I hope labour win the next election. That way the nats will dump the current &^%& and will hopefully get a decent leader in time for the next national government.
BTW, can anyone tell me what stance all the other parties had on this?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:16 pm
I have a better idea. We know governments can do anything.
Just ban colds.
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
“I have a better idea. We know governments can do anything.
Just ban colds.’
Is that before or after they kill all the Jews?
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:36 pm
My scream in the dark
If you look at the evidence there are two ways to deal with this problem.
Australia has pursued a hard line policy against importers and dealers with the result that they have reduced drug use down from the extreme highs of the 1990′s. This has come with a cost in peoples right’s, money and lives as violent gangs are the last dealers standing.
Portugal on the other hand has followed a path of greater liberalism since early 2000 and seems to have achieved similar results to Australia.
I think we need a calm look at this problem and not the constant hysteria that is part of our media circus, police and political elite.
Each country and culture is different but from English and American experience banning drugs doesn’t work. When heroin was made illegal in 1970 there were 3000 addicts getting prescribed opiates now the are 300000 users. They are now returning to prescription heroin as this has been shown to dramatically reduce the problems.
Our drug policy has been guided by America which hasn’t been the greatest example of success.
We need to take away the criminal element from drugs. I have been to countries where cannabis grows wild and others where beer can be bought from a vending machine yet have felt most threatened in countries that ban drugs.
To “fight” drugs, and I include alcohol, we must remove the criminal element, treat addiction as a disease and remove the glamor around them.
I propose we
1: make P and heroin available by prescription where a doctor can monitor the persons behaviour and offer addiction treatment on a voluntary basis.
2: Allow cannabis to be grown and used for personal use
3: Allow the sale of BZP or low dose ecstasy
3: Allow a premises to sell only drugs Alcohol, tobacco and BZP (and ecstasy), no other product or food
4: Ban advertising of all recreational drugs outside of the premises selling them.
5: An age limit and stiff fines or any sales or supply to those below 18 years old
6: Make it illegal to be intoxicated on public property with a 12 hour sober up incarceration as an instant punishment.
Follow this and we would dramatically decrease crime associated with all drugs and de-glamorise drugs. They would still be there but their effect on the country would fade.
Pity no one is listening
Cheers
Vote:October 9th, 2009 at 11:58 pm
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/2948960/Dying-teen-dumped-in-driveway
or a doctor prescribing
our choice
Vote:October 11th, 2009 at 3:41 am
how about legalize cannabis.
Vote:avoid most would be first time users coming into contact with p all together.