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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

John Key finally listens to Mikey Havoc


Make cold pills prescription-only – Labour
Making cold pills that can be used by criminals to make drugs available only on prescription is a better than banning them, Labour leader Phil Goff says. Prime Minister John Key yesterday said he was seeking advice on whether pseudoephedrine could be eliminated from the manufacture of cold tablets. Pseudoephedrine is a main precursor for methamphetamine and can be distilled from cold tablets. Mr Goff said New Zealanders got benefit from cold pills containing the substance. "It seems a shame that ordinary New Zealanders who can get real cold relief through tablets using pseudoephedrine should be denied that opportunity completely, because of the role of gangs and the shop buyers of pseudoephedrine. "If you make it a prescription item then of course people cannot go right around the country simply buying up those tablets from pharmacies." Mr Goff said the prescription idea could be easier to implement than a ban.

Mr Havoc has been on John Key’s tail everytime they discuss P on bFM to not only focus on the illegal P pushers, but to also focus on the legal P pushers. The pharmaceutical industry who make a billion per year in NZ selling pseudoephedrine products is the easiest source ingerient for do it yourself number 8 wire cooks to make P, but John Key will find taking on the legal pushers far too difficult a war to start. The power of the pharmaceutical industry (which may or may not fund the National Party, seeing as only 15% of National’s doners are not anonymous) means that Key’s threats to ban the products are just hot air, he won’t dare piss them off to the point of banning their billion dollar empire, so Labour’s plan to make them prescription only seems much more workable.

Personally I’m skeptical of all this war on P stuff, booze is by billions of dollars more a much deadlier drug and where our resources should be turned. The way to tackle P is to regulate the core ingredient (pseudoephedrine products) and to financially scrutinize with forensic accountants the structures organized gangs use to ship pseudoephedrine in and out of the country, making it more of a customs issue than policing issue. I don’t believe lowering the evidential threshold to seize assets or to redefine who a gang member is a positive step at all, I believe those are advances in police powers which repeal civil liberties by a level well beyond the danger of da gangs.

5 Comments:

At 27/5/09 4:17 pm, Blogger peterquixote said...

banning effective medicine which is pseudoephedrine based is silly,
all the gear that the mopb uses comes from china,

 
At 27/5/09 5:34 pm, Blogger Steve Withers said...

Key's ban idea would appear to indicate that pharmacists may well be an important channel for supply of precursor drugs....either willingly or unwillingly due to standover tactics by gangs.

Making them prescription-only wouldn't alter that, though it would likely make it more difficult for a pharmacists to hide large volumes of sales.

 
At 27/5/09 5:57 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gang standover tactics on pharmacists lol that is just dumb.

Even if you could eliminate pseudo cooks would just use other chemical pathways to manufacture.

 
At 29/5/09 4:43 pm, Anonymous deano said...

Peter Quixote actually makes sense. The P precursors do mainly come from China, and those of us who suffer from hayfever already get dirty looks when we want to buy some Sudafed. And now I will have to pay some quack 60 bucks to tell what I know already- that pseudoephedrine will fix my runny nose. That f*k'n sucks.

 
At 21/7/09 10:36 pm, Anonymous Anonymous said...

The problem with getting rid of pseudoephedrine flavored cold pills is that their "PE" counterparts are just a money making scam and don't work as a decongestant at all and never should have been allowed for sale as such.

 

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