Crack Down On Cold And Flu Drugs

[aunty establishment]

^ True that. Thanks a bunch, TGA! *ironic high five*

 

[hoptis]

Police track drug buyers via SMS
Renee Viellaris, chief police reporter
14 Jan 2006

AUTOMATED text messages are alerting police of the identity and location of people who pharmacy hop for drugs containing pseudoephedrine.

The Pharmacy Guild of Queensland software triggers an immediate alarm when multiple packets of drugs are requested by customers within a short period of time.

The new technology complements new laws introduced by the State Government two weeks ago prohibiting the sale of cold and flu drugs without photo identification.

National guild president Kos Sclavos said details from the identification, generally driver's licences, were keyed into a program that every Queensland pharmacy is linked to. All pharmacies are GPS coded.

Mr Sclavos said police receive a name and a map of the pharmacies targeted.

He said the initiative was having an immediate impact on the Queensland's clandestine laboratories, which need pseudoephedrine to make amphetamines.

"An SMS (text message) is sent to a special dedicated police number," Mr Sclavos said.

"Even if they go to different premises in Queensland in one day it will trigger an alert."

He said pharmacists key in details of the sales immediately and police have access to manufacturer's records to ensure chemists were abiding by laws.

He said the technology warns pharmacists to deny sales if a person has been struck off from buying the drug or if the customer has recently purchased drugs elsewhere.

"Normal people don't come up in the system. If you buy another pack (of drugs) in a month's time it won't come up."

And in the battle to beat illegal drug makers, Queensland pharmacies no longer bulk-buy the drugs and only keep "single digits" on premises to stop night-time ram raids by desperate criminals.

However, Mr Sclavos warned other states could become victim to Queensland's success.

He said until northern NSW pharmacies came on-line with the technology later this year, they would be targeted by drug makers desperate to obtain their ingredients.

The guild had not been given any financial assistance to fund the technology, he said.

"We had to do it otherwise it would have been seen as a failure of pharmacies.

"The next alternative would be prescriptions only and it would add $600,000 (a year) to Medicare costs."

From Courier -Mail

 

[chugs]

What is stopping "gangs" from purchasing a chemist, using fake driver license details (and/or for that matter obtain the license details from stolen wallets/purses) to sell themselves the pseudoephedrine drugs? As long as they keep to a reasonable, and acceptable, amount they'll be able to produce huge amounts of meth/speed (also get their hands onto other drugs).

An interesting story, not completely unrelated to this topic, a couple years ago i was offered a few grand to lend my house to a bikie gang who would use the space to produce a couple kilo's of speed. It was either that or book a hotel room in my name for them.

Apparently they just travel around, renting houses or motel/hotel rooms to make speed, it lets them make a lot of speed in different areas where they off load it their network of suburban dealers...

Essentially the deal was for 4-5 days they would come over, setup the equipment, cook it up and be off before the neighbors even had a chance to raise a eyebrow…In face of such a professional and well thought out production system I could hardly imagine professional drug producers would even be slowed let alone stopped by this new requirement. At best all it'll stop is the independent, tweaked, out idiot from trying to producing their own meth/speed.

All it's doing is giving the public the perception something is being done when in reality it won't stop the issue whatsoever. Chris Payne probably got the idea from the US…

 

[aunty establishment]

What is stopping "gangs" from purchasing a chemist, using fake driver license details (and/or for that matter obtain the license details from stolen wallets/purses) to sell themselves the pseudoephedrine drugs?

As I understand it, you need to have a degree in pharmacy and a pharmacist's license to own a chemist, and I imagine the process to becoming a licenced pharmacist is an arduous one. The retail pharmacy industry is obviously heavily legislated, probably at least in part to stop ownership falling into "the wrong hands".

 

[ferret5]

Where theres a will theres a way,phenylalanine can be bought in pure powder form at health food stores if they cant obtain psuedo.More time consuming but it gets there in the end.

 

[Splatt]

Hmmm, yeah why don't we start using diet coka and extra to source our meth precursors!

 

[ferret5]

Something like * would probably be easier .

Google for what to do with it.

*Edit*Sorry,my bad,anyway most health food stores have l-.DL and D arent allowed by the TGA i think,but can be ordered from overseas. :/

 

[phase_dancer]

Phenylalanine is available in Australia, in both D,L and L forms, but let me tell you right now, this will never replace pseudoephedrine as a starting material - unless there's been some recent breakthrough I haven't heard about.

Decarboxylation of phenylalanine requires specialty chemicals, in the sense they are not common, off the shelf types, and in most cases there little opportunity for diversion to occur in the same way as for those used in reducing pseudo.

Hydrogenation under pressure using catalysts and electroreduction methods are reported to very difficult to achieve positive results from. The problem lies with the need to replace OH of the the carboxylic acid with a Cl- or similar species as an intermediate step. Doing that with an unprotected amine group on C2 makes the molecule very prone to forming a dimer, then polymerizing.

Even if there was a simple way, would the market accept the result? The product, afterall is amphetamine, not meth.

 

[ferret5]

Why would they stop at amp?.Getting to amp would be alot harder than turning amp to meth?.

There are simpler and easier synths,but it does work.While cooks can get raw material for psuedo synth why bother,but if it gets hard enough to obtain phen is a workable alternative they might have to resort too?.

 

[Mr TIMO]

people just steal the shit from the supermarket.
this drugo at my work tried to steal about 30 packets each of nurofen, herron, and chewing gum.
nfi what the herron (paracetamol) and chewing gum was for.....

anyway security followed her around and she just put the basket down and left.

 

[pill_jockey]

^ what does this have to do with the thread "Crack down on cold and flu drugs"? Cold and flu drugs can't be sold in supermarkets and the products you listed have nothing to do with the synth of methamphetamines.

 

[Mr TIMO]

^ what does this have to do with the thread "Crack down on cold and flu drugs"? Cold and flu drugs can't be sold in supermarkets and the products you listed have nothing to do with the synth of methamphetamines.

someone on the first page mentioned nurofen so i assumed it was one of them. 8)

 

[phase_dancer]

There are simpler and easier synths

I'm interested in hearing what these are. Details are not necessary but perhaps a reference or two?

Decarboxylation of phenylalanine has long been discussed on drug chem discussion forums. A simple method - if it exists- has eluded the most intelligent contributors. There is also nothing html'd on reliable web drug chem archives, and I've seen no patent, paper or other such claim.

So, I'm keen, for reasons relating to Harm minimisation, to hear if this is to be the next popular clandestine method i.e if so, what are the likely impurities from such a method, and what's known about the toxicity of these compounds?

Why would they stop at amp?.Getting to amp would be alot harder than turning amp to meth?

I would argue that this is not an effective means of producing meth for most clandestine setups. The usual and most simple routes require either LiAlH4 - which is relatively difficult to handle and must be used in an absolutely dry environment, or hydrogenation using platinum or it's oxide - which are bloody expensive. And hydrogenators aren't exactly an off the shelf, hardware store item either - although they can be built.

I had thought that techniques using microwaves may be successful, but again, I've seen nothing to support this.

As you can see ferret5, unless you can demonstrate otherwise, I can't accept that phenylalanine would be a plausible replacement for pseudoephedrine in most Australian clandestine setups - as the majority simply wouldn't be properly equipped, or be able to obtain the resources to do the synthesis.

Another important point is that even though smaller amounts of L-phenylalanine are available through health food shops, the amino acid, if ordered through a chemical supplier, is regarded as a cat # 2 substance on the Code of Practice for Supply Diversion into Illicit Drug Manufacture. This means essentially that it is watched, and that if the buyer is not an account holder, an 'End User Declaration' (EUD) is required.



BTW, the code of practice was updated late last year. Several things have been rescheduled and a few things added to the list. MDMA starting materials and pseudoephedrine are now cat #1 chems (all purchases require and EUD) although surprisingly, isosafrole is still cat# 2. I can only guess why....

 

[MethTheChef]

is it just me or has this country started to really suck in the past 10 years . . .

boohoo, you're too scared to ask a pharmacist for N+... ;p

 

[ferret5]

Im not suggesting its simple,when i said there are easier synths i meant like psuedo reductions.

As youve already said,phen is far from the preferred route,but its scheduled as a watched precursor for a reason.I was suggesting it as a ALTERNATIVE if psuedo is UNATTAINABLE.Phen is watched,but nowhere near as bad as ANY precursor involved in a psuedo reduction.

Backyard cowboys wouldnt be able to utilise it no,but chemists could.When cooks are seriously contemplating bulk ephedra extractions from plant material etc you can see how desperate they are getting.


Lithium batteries and borax are readily available afaik.Im not in the business but i dont understand why theyd stick to psuedo come hell or hgh water.Then again i dont understand why any speed dealer doesnt use methcathinone for cutting when it can be made in hours by complete amatuers.

 

[phase_dancer]

Phen is watched,but nowhere near as bad as ANY precursor involved in a psuedo reduction.

That's because it isn't a popular route, nor is it likely to ever be unless someone makes a

discovery, and word gets out.

Backyard cowboys wouldnt be able to utilise it no,but chemists could.

The same could be said of many alternative routes to meth/amp, some of which involve things not watched at all. However, it's the "backyard cooks" who currently make much of the speed around, and within their circles are people able to divert chemicals for that process. These people are very likely to be sourcing through diverted industrially bound chemicals. They simply wouldn't have access to chemicals involved in other routes, meaning the current chain of supply would be broken with any new route involving other chemicals.

Lithium batteries and borax are readily available afaik.Im not in the business but i dont understand why theyd stick to psuedo come hell or hgh water.Then again i dont understand why any speed dealer doesnt use methcathinone for cutting when it can be made in hours by complete amatuers.

re topic; lithium is only good for birch reduction - to remove an OH group from a non-carbonyl carbon - so, as a reduction process for making meth, it's also limited to using pseudo. Producers wouldn't waste pseudo to make cat, when they can make meth from it. The oxidation process may be relatively simple, but it isn't necessarily that high yielding. Besides, pseudo converted to meth is worth much more.

 

[hoptis]

Violence rises due to drug controls
By Ruth Pollard Health Reporter
May 17, 2006

UNTIL restrictions on the sale of pseudoephedrine took effect in January, up to 50 per cent of the drug sold or stolen from pharmacies went into the illicit manufacture of metham-phetamines, a parliamentary inquiry has heard.

However, while the controls have reduced the number of "pseudo runners" going from pharmacy to pharmacy to obtain drugs containing pseudoephedrine, they had also led to an increase in the use of violence to obtain the drug, senior NSW police told the inquiry.

Continuing the crackdown on methamphetamine, or speed, police called on the Federal Government to regulate the importation of pill presses.

"At the moment somebody can order a pill press, bring it into the country and sell it in the Trading Post or on eBay to individuals who have no legitimate reason to use it," Detective Inspector Paul Willingham told the inquiry.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration could issue licences for pill presses and it could be made an offence to possess such equipment without a licence, he said.

Researchers told the parliamentary inquiry there were 73,000 dependent methamphet-amine users in Australia - almost double the number addicted to heroin.

The director the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Richard Mattick, said it was a mistake to think that medicinal therapies, such as methadone to treat heroin, were the only way to beat drug dependency.

Governments should also be investing in treatments such as cognitive behavioural therapy and other psychological interventions, he said.

"We have been quite poor in Australia in responding in an accurate way [to drug use] and this is driven by politics," Professor Mattick told the inquiry.

Chris Arblaster, the marketing and development director of the Australian Self Medication Industry, said the repackaging and rescheduling of pseudoephedrine products had had a marked impact on the diversion of those drugs into the illicit trade. Before that "anything up to 50 per cent of the market was open to abuse", he said.

From Sydney Morning Herald