Oamaru pharmacies have removed from their shelves cold and flu remedies and decongestants which contain the ingredient to make the illegal drug P.
The three pharmacies - Oamaru Pharmacy, North Otago Dispensary (formerly UFS) and Dispensary First North End Pharmacy - have removed all stocks of cold remedies containing pseudoephedrene and have sent them back to wholesalers.
The remedies can be used to make the drug P (methamphetamine), which can make pharmacies the targets of burglaries and raids.
In Dunedin, there have been a significant number of raids on pharmacies to obtain pseudoephedrene tablets and compounds over the past six weeks, including a ram-raid on the Knox Pharmacy on March 25 when a station wagon was reversed through a window and a large number of flu and cold tablets taken.
Oamaru Pharmacy pharmacist Jim Hopley said on Tuesday the possibility of raids or burglaries posed a danger to the business, staff and the community, ‘‘We have decided to follow other pharmacies in New Zealand and not stock them. There are plenty of other alternatives available they cannot make P out of,'' he said.
Oamaru police intelligence officer Mark Crawford said anything that deterred illegal drugs production was a positive move.
While not a regular occurrence, the problem in Oamaru was people coming in from other areas to buy legal products, such as cold remedies containing pseudoephedrene, which could be used to manufacture illegal drugs.
