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.