Pubdate: Tue, 08 Nov 2005 Source: Parksville Qualicum Beach News (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Parksville Qualicum Beach News Contact: http://www.pqbnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1361 Author: Colleen Dane Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada) PROVINCE TARGETS SALES OF SOME METH INGREDIENTS Cold medication could be turned into a prescription-only treatment, if a new monitoring plan by the provincial government shows there's a problem with the sale of precursor ingredients for crystal meth production in local pharmacies. In an announcement made last week, solicitor general John Les revealed a plan to control the distribution of meth ingredients. In the first step of the plan, the sales of bulk cold medications will be closely monitored with the help of pharmacies and programs such as Meth Watch. Oceanside's Meth Watch program, launched through the Oceanside Community Crystal Meth Task Force, and run by Oceanside RCMP Auxiliary, teaches store staff about possible red flag items, combinations of purchases, and how to properly record and report anything suspicious. It's especially important to educate people working in pharmacies as well as hardware stores, they say. Les says it's those concerns that they will be addressing with this new plan. "We know - that there is some potential that people are buying these ingredients through pharmacies - with that knowledge I think it's necessary for us to be on the look out," says Les. The province is starting with monitoring activities he says, because they're trying to determine how much of a problem the sale of these ingredients is at the local retail level. Evidence of sales, as of now says Les, is that most meth producers use bulk commercial imports of the precursor chemicals. If the initial monitoring phase does reveal a significant problem, then subsequent phases of this plan could lead to the restrictions on the sale on these items to licensed pharmacies, or even make them available by prescription only. "That's not something we want to do, but it's something that we would do to keep these materials from going in the wrong hands," says Les. Those regulations would have to be provincewide, whether the community has a problem or not. So far, the plan has received open support from the B.C. Pharmacy Association. There is no set date when future phases of the plan may begin. - --- MAP posted-by: Larry Seguin