POLICE CALL FOR CURB ON COLD TABLETS

POLICE have called for common cold remedies, including Codral and Sudafed,
to be listed as prescription drugs because criminals are using them to make
amphetamines.

Detective Superintendent Ken McKay of the NSW Crime Agency said the listing
would make it harder for criminals to obtain drugs from which they extract
pseudoephedrine in home laboratories to sell on the streets at 10 times its
cost.

NSW police have asked the Federal Government to amend the Therapeutic Goods
Act so consumers would need a doctor's prescription for drugs including
Codral, Sinutab and Dimetapp. A recent Australian Bureau of Criminal
Intelligence report identified Sudafed tablets as "an increasingly
sought-after substance for the manufacture of illicit drugs".

It detailed a "Sudafed run" from Cairns to Brisbane, in which people stopped
at every chemist en route to buy the drug before selling it to amphetamine
"cooks".

Superintendent McKay said the cooks used clandestine drug laboratories to
extract pseudoephedrine to make illegal amphetamines, including speed
(methylamphetamine).

A Therapeutic Goods Act Administration spokesman said the police proposal
would be considered by the National Drugs and Poisons Schedule Committee.
But Australian Medical Association president David Brand said the proposal
was inconvenient, costly and had no medical basis. "You'd clearly have many
more visits to doctors that would be a very expensive change to the health
system in terms of rebates."

President of the Pharmacy Society of NSW, John Bell, said chemists
experienced people attempting to buy large quantities of pseudoephedrine but
most refused to sell more than one box.

Derek Tye, Australian spokesman for the US manufacturer of Sudafed, Warner
Lambert, condemned the proposal as denying the public "a very simple and
easy medication to give symptomatic relief".