I’m one of a pretty large proportion of the population for whom phenylephrine medication for a cold is about as useless as tits on a bull. And like most MPs, especially those involved in the education sector who have contact with lots of people every week, I get the sniffles about once a year, and grab a packet of psuedoephedrine based medicine from Clive the award winning Chemist in Wainui.
It works.
I suppose because I am generally organised I will ask my GP for a prescription when I go in for my checkup. The packet will go into the bathroom cupboard for use when necessary.
But most won’t and will fill up GPs’ waiting rooms which will be a pain in the arse in the Hutt where we have a shortage of GPs. And they will pay about $40. Nothing for John but a lot for someone who is in a one income family and who has had their overtime cut out. And who has to take a couple of hours off work to get the prescription to stop them having to take a couple of days off work.
There are lots of jobs, John, where the boss doesn’t want you to have a runny nose. Sometimes it is dangerous.
John Key has turned down an offer from Aussie give us their on line system that alerts chemists when someone starts doing the rounds and the Police can be called. Talk about stupid. But accepting their offer is not as politically dramatic as banning popular medicine.
I’m happy enough to divert some of the people who make me take my computer out of my bag when I travel from Auckland to Wellington onto targeting imports of pseudoehpedrine. And sticking more resources into ESR so the court backlogs can be eliminated and the criminals that make P can get quick justice rather than spending years in soft remand cells or on bail.
I’m still waiting to hear what Rodney Hide says about this.
Iain Lees-Galloway posted on this early in the life of Red Alert.
Update there is a stuff poll with over 10,000 votes – 60% against Key – here.
Perhaps trev you could leed me to where your partys strategy is for this?
It would be nice to have something tangable to work from. Perhaps if your strategy has some worth while points it could be intergrated with Nats to get the best of a combined effort and to eliminate the chaffe from both strategies. Is not topics like this that multi partisian efforts are erquired or is it better to play the win/loss game?
Sorry I missed the invitation from John Key to get involved in this area. Can you give me the reference. I agree that multi partisan works well in some areas but it takes a government that is willing to work in good faith. ETS and superannuation tend to indicate to me that this government isn’t up to it yet.
The only bi partisian thing of note and 88% of the public disagree mmm!
Back on the thread, is there any policy by any party (Excl Greens and Libertarians) on this or is it an operational matter for the police?
As I believe there needs to HIT the importers/manufactureers/suppliers HARD, but be supportive of the users with clinics and other forms of assistance.
Educate to reduce the initial usage, make it dificult to distribute (Leave the urge to use unfulfilled) and limit production.
Mind you Trevor we did manage with other remedies a few years ago. I hope we are not drug dependent for a natural event? By the way Trevor I don’t think that your first sentence means what you meant.
The Progressive Party did all the work re methamphetamine, when Jim Anderton was Associate Minister of Health and Minister in Charge of Drugs. This was the work of The Labour-Progressive Government creating The 32 point methamphetamine Action Plan in 2003/2004. It was implemented and the strategy needs to continue as it covered all aspects of the P issue.
John Key, The Show Pony, is on show for the sake of a headline!
$40 for a doctors visit in Wainui ??
My local GP only charges in the low $20s , thanks to Labours targeted patient subsidies for adult doctor visits.
Then there is the medication itself which seems overpriced as an over the counter medication. Lets hope Pharmac gets a generic at a rock bottom price which means you pay far less than the $15 max prescription fee
Hutt ghost and up to $76 at the afterhours where lots of poorer working people go cos they can’t afford time off work.
This move is more evidence of a lack of common sense coming from the government. It’s a pity because I suspect this current plan is all the government will do about drugs. Some of their moves are a step in the right direction but overall it is a missed opportunity. And in the case of P it is ludicrous. Why is Key afraid to cooperate with Australia or Labour? Someone’s giving him poor advice.
$45 for my doctor in the city…
I fail to see how the proposed changes will reduce the amount of P produced. Chemists will have to stock the cold remedies, and will be subject to the real possibility of armed hold-ups etc.
Has anyone produced any figures to show the percentage of P produced from psuedoephedrine obtained from chemists compared to the amount produced from illegal imports?
Apparently one third chemists (inc robberies burglaries as well as purchases) two thirds illegal imports.
I thought obesity was more of a problem then P in terms of cost to society
Restricting the amount of junk food in publicly funded schools would be a good step
Or how about smoking? doing something about POS displays for tobacco?
No I think we can see this for what it really is
I talked a GP about this yesterday who thought it was a crazy idea. He said no-one is likely to come in to get a presciption for psuedoephedrine based medicine.
He acknowledged that people use the medicine to enable them to get through a cold and still manage to function.
But making a special trip to the doctor for it is not going to happen. He just shook his head in bemusement.
[...] Trevor’s post on psuedoephedrine based medicine below, has spurred me to do a quick post on [...]
“John Key has turned down an offer from Aussie give us their on line system that alerts chemists when someone starts doing the rounds and the Police can be called.” That would have been a better starting point.
how on earth can ANY attempt to slow the manufacture of P be a bad thing. This initiative will not stop P being available but please, lets stop slag off anybody who makes an attempt.
This subject is like many others (global warming Carbon trading v ETS, Ak Super City etc) where each side brings out their own experts to back their own thread.
Good on John Key and ANY input from the Labour Party and others must be valued and considered.
P should not be a political football.
And to think they called Labour a ‘Nanny state’ – looks like keys looking to take on the role of ‘daddy state’. Some consultation – not. All this knee jerk reaction and ‘bandaid’ for the issue will do is further punish people who cant afford the doc bill or the time off work to sit in a full waiting room. It not like all kiwis have the size of his bank account or wallet. Its another example of how Key is actually not in touch with the average joe or joette.
For goodness sake – when will the nats learn – put resources into the front line, work with Aussie and use some good ol common sense!
What about the extra costs? Extra doctors visits, which mostly are subsidised and the prescription itself , they maybe a cost to the government for that which wasnt usually covered before. Pharmac must be like Telecom, in ‘despair’ over this pointless extra cost to their budget
I’m not sure that you are right ghost. I’m not an expert in the area but if PHOs are funded on a capitation basis and the drugs are not Pharmac subsidised then the cost will fall on individuals.
When that measure causes more harm than the amount of P it will remove from the market.
Does anyone have a reference/link for a credible report on the source of pseudoephidrine for P cooks in New Zealand?
I would imagine the majority of psuedoephidrine is purchased and imported from overseas where it is cheaper and unregulated.
Key’s plan will put effective decongestant relief out of reach of the general population, when its actual effect on curbing P distribution in New Zealand will be negligible. Not sure employers will feel all that happy about having employees walk off the job to visit already overcrowded GP clinics either.
I had no problem handing over my drivers licence to have my pseudoephidrine purchase (presumably) recorded on an electronic register.
What gives?
I’m not happy with a comment I heard on Q&A that the media should get behind the initiatives against P. I watched Closeup and Paul Holmes was so (understandably) upset that the other guy wasn’t able to get his points across. I do admire Holmes’ desire to fight P and I wish him well with that.
I just want to hear BOTH sides of the argument in the media not a one-sided view.
I don’t think that banning over the counter sales is the answer, it isn’t fair to the rest of us.
I like Tim Gray’s idea of having an electronic register, surely that would do the trick without making the rest of us suffer.
Trevor, we are a similar age and when I was gowing up, I’m sure it was similar with you, whenever I was unwell (cough/cold/flu/ear ache etc), I was given a mix of .. flat lemonade, warm water with lemon and/or honey, a hot water bottle, cod liver oil and sometimes a burner thing with some smelly suff on top in a bowl that stank to high hell and plenty of bed rest.
These days we turn to drugs and to be honest I don’t really think they speed up recovery??
The winners out of all this are the drug companies and boy, are they making a killing (no pun) and most of the comments above will be music to their ears.
What Key is doing is nothing more than a start .. the starters gun has fired so lets go and make a difference.
How about just ending prohibition and respecting peoples rights to use their OWN bodies as they wish? Thats what a free society is about (And I know NZ is not a free society by a long way…which is a shame we bear where the memories of our brave war dead are concerned)…respecting peoples natural,individual rights to make WRONG and personally destructive choices with whats theirs…not just to make “good” choices as others may judge them.
Of course we would have to get rid of the State “die while you wait” health system and take personal responsibility for ourselves so that ideas already dead in the water in this silly socialist backwater…
@ Jabba – I think we have increased expectations of ourselves – turning up to work notwithstanding colds. The hassle us guys get for man-flu.
I drink lemon and honey most days and eat a fair few kiwi fruit. Generally a good way to keep most things at bay.
Making pseudoephedrine a prescription only medicine won’t do anything to the availability of methamphetamine – neither would Australia’s Project Stop, the Police are just trying to find a solution for a problem they didn’t see coming. The banning of BZP has probably also added to meth use. But, meth’s use has been decreasing for a few years anyway.
So – either way its just another knee jerk response to a very complex issue. We need to re-think drug policy significantly. At least in NZ we’ve actually had a crack at getting something positive happening with the restricted substances schedule – it is one way that we can make safer drugs available in a safer way for those who want to use psychoactive substances other than alcohol. So props to Labour and Jim Anderton for allowing such a common sense approach to be put in place – pity it isn’t being used more.
Mind you Trevor, no props are owed whatsoever to Labour for failing to deal with alcohol (although Jim Anderton and Lianne Dalziel deserve some credit for some initiatives and some attempt to do something). Alcohol is massively more harmful to NZ than methamphetamine is or ever will be. Maybe Labour could take back some high ground by proposing a strategy to genuinely address alcohol related harm. Over to you.
“Alcohol is massively more harmful to NZ than methamphetamine is or ever will be. Maybe Labour could take back some high ground by proposing a strategy to genuinely address alcohol related harm. Over to you.”
I think methamphetamine is more harmful than alcohol due to it’s extremely addictive nature and the level of psychosis it produces.
Labour has been posting on alcohol harm reduction ideas, they have made an effort.
Spud – but they didn’t do much when they had the chance. Meth is very addictive, but there are far more alcoholics in NZ than meth addicts. Alcohol causes far more deaths in NZ than meth does (approx 100 times more).
We’re both right, Meth is a worse substance and alcoholism is more prevalent, agreed.
I’m going by what I’ve seen on red alert in recent months, alcohol has been brought up for discussion. I’m not disagreeing with you I’m just pointing out that they having been at least bringing up the topic in recent times.
I think it’s great that you want to help society in that way.
I agree Trevor that medicine has moved on from the old methods .. a worry is that now, people take the “night and days” whatever they are called and return to work earlier than in the past because they feel better BUT just spread germs around. I hate drugs of all sorts, legal and illegal, so anything that gets us away from them suits me. That’s how I feel but I would not try and tell others to follow .. as James suggests above.