Diana and Wayne Baker stopped selling pseudoephedrine products six years ago. Photo / Richard Robinson
The Herald's War on P series last year produced an overwhelming reaction from readers and a swift response from the Government. This week, we revisit the people and the issues to find out what has changed.
Pharmacist Wayne Baker doesn't like to annoy customers - but he has a straightforward answer for anyone who complains about the Government's ban on pseudoephedrine in cold and flu pills.
"Let's face it, all we're talking about is a runny nose, which is not a major medical condition."
More importantly,
he argues, the drug is used as the main ingredient of methamphetamine, which causes huge social damage and considerable personal risk to pharmacists like him.
Mr Baker and his wife, Diana, stopped selling pseudoephedrine-based cold and flu products six years ago after a 3am ram-raid on their Sandringham Village Pharmacy by thieves looking for the drug.
Last May, they responded to the Herald's War on P series by writing in support of a ban.
"Somebody needs to stand up to this drug and the damage it's doing to society," said Mrs Baker at the time. "This is our stand. We don't want to be party to it in any way."
A week later, Prime Minister John Key picked up the idea and in October made the drug virtually unavailable to most cold sufferers.
Some pharmacists say the replacement drug, phenylephrine, does not work nearly as well as pseudoephedrine.
Pharmacy Guild president Annabel Young said her members were divided on the issue but she would be interested to see how the virtual ban was applied.
She predicted multinational drug companies would watch select committee hearings on the law change closely to see how much freedom doctors were given to prescribe.
If they thought the rules were too tight, some might pull out of the whole Australasian market because drug companies were worried that Australia, with its own meth problem, could copy the New Zealand ban.
