Pharmacist who dispensed 'P' precursor drug suspended

Auckland GP Rhys Cullen. Photo / Martin Sykes

An Auckland pharmacist has been suspended for 12 months after dispensing nearly 800 prescriptions of a `P' precursor drug for a "rogue" doctor.

Ian Graham May was found guilty of professional misconduct by a Health Practitioners Disciplinary Tribunal in December last year.

The inquiry was told that he had dispensed 773 prescriptions, a total of 46,380 60mg tablets, of a pseudoephedrine-based drug Sudomyl over five months up to March 2007.

Pseudoephedrine is a precursor chemical for manufacturing illicit street drugs known as "P".

The prescriptions were written by Auckland GP Rhys Cullen, who was suspended by the tribunal on March 29, 2007 and subsequently had his registration as a doctor cancelled.

The prescriptions were always for 60 tablets, when most pharmacists prescribed only five to 30 tablets at a time.

Over four months when Mr May dispensed 38,140 Sudomyl tablets, only 425 of them were for doctors other than Dr Cullen.

Many prescriptions were for one address, with six different patients being recorded as living there, and significant variations in spelling of street names which limited computer match-ups.

The tribunal said Mr May knew Dr Cullen's prescribing of Sudomyl was "massively out of line" yet he allowed it to continue.

The pharmacist was aware of the potential for misuse or abuse of Sudomyl and that dispensing it in the quantities he did posed a real risk to public health and safety, the tribunal said.

In a separate decision released today, the tribunal suspended Mr May's registration for 12 months, fined him $5000, and ordered him to pay 30 per cent of the costs of the inquiry and the hearing, amounting to over $25,000.

Following his suspension, the tribunal ordered Mr May to undertake any requirements imposed by the Pharmacy Council of New Zealand in order to demonstrate his competence at his own cost.

- NZPA