Test purchases show flaws in pharmacy medicine controls
Evidence that sales of decongestants, including pseudoephedrine-containing products, are not properly controlled in all pharmacies has been published
by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
A series of test purchases organised by police and trading standards
officers in Cleveland and using 15-year-olds as buyers found that the
children were able to buy multiple packs of decongestants from a range
of pharmacies and general wholesalers. The children also asked for iodine
and matches because it was thought that this would raise suspicion over
the purchases — iodine and match heads are used in the chemical
reaction to convert ephedrine and pseudoephedrine to methylamphetamine.
The young people attempted to buy six packets of various decongestants
from each pharmacy or general wholesaler visited. The purchases were
made three weeks after the Royal Pharmaceutical Society warned
pharmacists to treat requests for inappropriately large quantities of products containing
ephedrine or pseudoephedrine with caution (PJ, 27 January, p114).
The MHRA’s published evidence states that in each case the purchases
were not challenged. However, it goes on to say that sales were limited
to two packs in each pharmacy, except in one case, where six packs were
passed through the till in three batches of two.
Overall, the test purchases amounted to 45 packs of decongestant products,
12 of which contained pseudoephedrine. The other 33 packs had phenylephrine
as the active
ingredient.
David Pruce, director of practice and quality improvement at the Royal
Pharmaceutical Society, commented: “The Society is not familiar
with the precise details of what happened in Cleveland, however, we do
have some concerns that the study may not have been conducted in a robust
manner. In response to the MHRA consultation on proposals to restrict
the availability of medicines containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine
we are calling for tighter control within pharmacy (limiting maximum
pack size and restricting to one pack per purchase). Should these changes
come into force then pharmacists would carry them out as rigidly as they
do for any other sales of
medicines.”
The MHRA has also published a number of other documents setting out the
background to the proposal to make all ephedrine- and pseudoephedrine-containing
products prescription only, including an edited version of an Association
of Chief Police Officers report on illicit methylamphetamine laboratories.
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