Sunday, February 12, 2006

Taking cold medicine off shelves a commercial move, grocers say

From the London Free Press:
Canada's independent grocers say a national pharmacy body's move to ban cold and allergy medicine from grocery shelves is meant to remove a competitor, not prevent the production of the street drug methamphetamine.

"We believe this decision's being made by a pharmacy body to benefit pharmacies," said Gary Sands, vice president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Grocers.

The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities, or NAPRA, has recommended almost all cough, cold and allergy medicines be removed from grocery store shelves to fight the production of the illegal drug. ...more

While I am not convinced that removing all pseudoephredrine-containing products from public access areas really makes a big difference in curbing the meth problem, I find it rather unlikely that NAPRA is using this as a cover to squeeze grocery stores out of the picture.

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