Drug groups and doctors seek ban on new 'jellies'

ANDREW DENHOLM

SCOTTISH doctors, chemists and drug agencies joined forces yesterday in
an attempt to get a ban imposed on a potentially lethal new gelfilled
sleeping pill being injected by drug addicts.

The campaign has been started after fears that the capsules could become
as popular among injecting drug users as temazepam "jellies" were until
the government banned them in 1995.

Packets of eight Sleepia gelfilled capsules, which contain 50mg of
antihistamine, can be bought over the counter at chemists without a
prescription for 2.99.

Drug users are combining the capsules with heroin and methadone to form
a potentially lethal cocktail and in some areas of Glasgow supplies of
the drug are already running low.

Greater Glasgow Health Board, pharmacists, doctors and drug agencies are
calling on the marketing company, Pfizer Consumer Health Care, in
Hampshire to replace the bright blue "jellies" with dry tablets.

A health board consultant, Dr Laurence Gruer, said he was shocked when
he discovered the tablets were on sale. "I cannot believe this was ever
even allowed on the market," he said. "Some of the pharmacies in Glasgow
were sold out within days because it is such an easy option because it
is cheap and readymade for injection.

"If taken in a high enough dose, which is what addicts tend to do, these
pills cause the brain to start running down and can affect breathing."

David Macauley, the campaign director of Scotland Against Drugs, said
there was no reason for selling the drug in capsule form. "The makers
should consider reformulating the drug in tablet form given the
potential for abuse by a certain nonconforming minority," he said.

"This could defuse what could become a potentially dangerous situation
while allowing the majority of sensible users to enjoy the benefits of
the drug."

Dr Tom Gilhooly, of Glasgow Drugs Crisis Centre, also called for
immediate action. "We cannot afford to wait until we start seeing an
increase in deaths from drugs," he said.

"The company has clearly underestimated the feelings of parents who have
lost children to drugs. They will not just sit back and we must stop
this before there is another drugs holocaust."

But David Merrington, the managing director of Pfizer, defended the drug
and claimed it was impossible for addicts to get a high from the liquid.
"We have received letters of concern about the drug, but there is no
recorded incident of Sleepia increasing the high caused by methadone,"
he said.

"The effects of injecting the contents of a Sleepia capsule will be the
same as those after oral intake, but will occur more rapidly. There will
be no high."

He said that the drug could not be compared with temazepam and had been
on sale in the United States for three years without any instances of
dependency or abuse.

Pfizer has spent 2 million advertising the drug, which was introduced
into the UK this year.

Sleepia is made in the RP Scherer factory in Swindon, which used to make
the gelfilled temazepam pellets.