Tuesday, May 31, 2005 | 10:58 a.m.
The Las Vegas Valley's biggest pharmacies, including Wal-Mart, Target, Walgreens and Albertson's, say it will soon be more difficult to buy certain allergy and cold medications -- but the businesses say the changes are in the community's best interest.
Those companies and others are moving medications containing pseudoephedrine such as Sudafed, Claritin-D and Advil Cold & Sinus behind pharmacy counters to curb theft and illegal drug making.
Pseudoephedrine is used to relieve runny noses and watery eyes but is also needed to make methamphetamine (meth), which is an addictive stimulant that reduces sleeping and appetites while increasing physical activity. It can have toxic effects on the central nervous system and lead to hallucinations and strokes, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse's Web site.
Nevada, like many states, already limits the number of packages that can be purchased in one sale but many of the pharmacies have voluntarily opted to restrict sales and move medications.
The Nevada State Board of Pharmacy passed regulations in 2001 that require pharmacies to sell no more than three of the largest packages available -- or three grams per box -- of pseudoephedrine-containing products per sale and the drugs have to be in their original containers, Board of Pharmacy Lawyer Louis Ling said.
"They don't want to be part of the creation of methamphetamine," Ling said. "They want to make sure the sales they make are legitimate."
After Nevada's regulations were created many pharmacies opted to put pseudoephedrine products behind pharmacy shelves or near check-out counters to reduce theft, Ling said.
"The industry has responded very well to this threat in large part because there was a ton of theft if you put this stuff on the shelf," Ling said. "The other thing some stores have done is given employees the discretion to limit what they'll sell and who they'll sell it to."
Nevada's regulations also apply to ephedrine, which is now illegal, and phenylpropanolamine, which used to be found in nasal decongestants and appetite suppressants.
"The Board of Pharmacy did what it could to limit access to what they can without affecting legitimate commerce," Ling said.
Some states such as Oklahoma have regulations that require all pseudoephedrine medications to be behind pharmacy counters and customers must present their government-issued identifications and sign a log sheet before purchasing the drugs.
"It limits the point of access to legitimate customers and it's inconvenient," Ling said. "People don't like to produce their IDs to get their cold medicine or allergy medicine. That's why the Board of Pharmacy chose not to go that route."
The Nevada board also wanted to ensure its regulations were not so restrictive that the medications could not be sold at grocery and convenience stores, he said.
Retailers say they are going beyond the state's requirements in an attempt to curb the making of meth and to reduce theft, which is prevalent because of the limits.
DeAnne Mautz, a Target store manager in Las Vegas, said the company has had a long-standing policy of limiting sales of pseudoephedrine products to two packages per sale.
"Now that we've limited it to what they can buy, they're trying to steal more," she said. "In another month we'll be totally taking them off the sales floor and putting them behind the pharmacy counter. They can go right to the pharmacy and ask for them for anything that has that in it."
Target said in an April news release that within 60 to 90 days stores that have no pharmacy will not carry allergy and cold medications that contain psuedoephedrine.
Most Las Vegas Valley Target stores have a pharmacy, Mautz said.
At CVS pharmacies, about 20 products that contain pseudoephedrine as the single ingredient will be placed behind pharmacy counters after July, company spokesman Mike DeAngelis said.
"We don't anticipate having to reduce our supply," he said of the 21 Las Vegas Valley stores.
Longs Drugs is pursuing a similar strategy to limit the supply of pseudoephedrine for misuse, which is not being curbed with sales limits, company spokeswoman Phyllis Proffer said.
On April 25 the company announced it would move about 160 medications that contain pseudoephedrine from store shelves to behind pharmacy counters, she said.
Longs -- operator of seven valley locations -- will have a ticket on the shelves where the medications used to be stocked and customers can take those tickets to the pharmacy counter to purchase the items they want, Proffer said.
"We want to make it as convenient as possible for our customers," she said.
Moving some medications from store shelves may be inconvenient for customers but is necessary to curb meth making and reduce theft, she said.
"This is a dangerous drug and the production of this drug is even more dangerous," she said of meth. " It's not about the economic impact. It's about getting this off the streets."
Wal-Mart started limiting the sale of pseudoephedrine to three packages at all of its stores -- except those in states with stricter laws -- in 1997 to curb meth production, company spokeswoman Jacquie Young said.
In June, Wal-Mart will move the "most commonly abused" cold and allergy medications that contain pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters with the remaining products following by September, she said.
"We're trying to be a responsible retailer," Young said. "We realize this is an issue that not only affects Wal-Mart but the rest of the country."
Walgreens announced in April it would move products that contain pseudoephdrine as the main ingredient behind pharmacy counters and will continue to limit the number of packages that can be purchased at one time for other medications that contain the drug. It has about 50 local locations.
Karen Ramos, pharmacy spokeswoman for Sav-on and Albertsons, said her company's 2,500 stores announced last month that they would move solid-form pseudoephedrine products behind pharmacy counters by fall, which do not include liquid and gel cap medications.
Albertsons and its subsidiaries such as Sav-on pharmacies -- which have 65 valley locations -- have a long-standing limit of three packages with each containing no more than three grams of pseudoephedrine, she said.
" Even once those products are behind the pharmacy those policies will remain," she said. "There are limitations to the space behind the pharmacy. We may cut back on the number of facings as well as the number of products."
Space isn't the only challenge with moving common allergy and cold medications behind pharmacy counters, Ramos said.
Customers will only be able to purchase the medications during pharmacy hours, which are often shorter than store hours, she said.
A potential upside to all of the changes in the pharmacy industry is that many cold and allergy drug manufacturers are reformulating their products so they do not contain pseudoephedrine, pharmacy spokespeople say.
"Things will look a lot different a year from now," Longs spokeswoman Proffer said.
Capt. Stavros Anthony, head of the Metro Police narcotics division, said the pharmacies' voluntary efforts will aid the community by reducing meth labs in Las Vegas and making it harder for a "small user" to get the chemicals.
"It's a good start," he said. "I applaud those stores for doing that."
The downside is that meth continues to be the top drug threat in large part because the ingredients are being imported from Asia, cooked in Mexico and brought into the United States, Anthony said.
"Putting the ephedrine behind counters is not going to stop that, but it is going to stop someobdy that is trying to do a cook in their house that is going to sell a small amount of it or make it for themselves," he said.
Renee Coffman, dean of the Nevada College of Pharmacy, said pharmacists seem to have mixed feelings about whether they should monitor the sale of pseudoephedrine.
"Pharmacies are being the gatekeepers," Coffman said.
Some pharmacists have the attitude "it's not my job" to supervise customers' purchases and it's "another layer of oversight in terms of what they have to do," Coffman said.
"It's not going to stop somebody that wants to get the amount they want to go out and do what they want to do with it," she said, adding that they could buy the limit at several pharmacies.
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