Customer will pay for new law on 'P'

By BRIDGET CARTER


People will soon pay more for cough and cold pills at their pharmacies thanks to a new law that makes it harder for criminals to import a key ingredient for methamphetamine.

Pseudoephedrine is now classified as a class C controlled drug rather than a pharmacy medicine and so the boxes for products such as Sudafed, Actifed and Sinutab will have to be labelled especially for the New Zealand market.

Euan Galloway, of the Pharmaceutical Society, said the new labelling requirements would cost the industry more than $1 million.

"That cost will have to be passed on to the customer," he said.

The new law came into force this month as a direct attempt to stop criminals importing large amounts of pseudoephedrine to make the highly addictive and destructive drug pure methamphetamine, known as P.

As a controlled drug, pseudoephedrine will have importation restrictions.

In six months, products containing pseudoephedrine will have to say "controlled drug", rather than just "pharmacy medicine".

And there will be strict rules for pharmacies about how the products are stored and sold.

The reclassification also means that anyone who wants to deal or import the substance needs a licence to do so.

Mr Galloway said our labelling requirements would now be out of kilter with other countries, such as Australia, where most of our products are packed.

"Since most of our medicines are manufactured from the same market, there will have to be a specific manufacturing run for our lot, which will mean an increased cost."

Class C drugs were generally prescription only.

Associate Health Minister Jim Anderton agreed to make an exemption for pseudoephedrine so it could still be sold over the counter.

But an appeal to also have an exemption in place for the labelling was unsuccessful.

Mr Anderton said the labels needed to be on the packets so that if someone was caught with them illegally "you can't say they weren't told".

"I have spoken to the industry. There is cost, but we have given them six months to use up their stocks."

But Mr Galloway said it would take longer than six months to use up stocks.

"It is not just what is in the shop today, but also in storage and en route to New Zealand."