PSEUDOEPHEDRINE SALES

The Hon. J.D. HILL (Kaurna—Minister for Health, Minister for Mental Health and Substance Abuse, Minister for the Southern Suburbs, Minister Assisting the Premier in the Arts) (14:08): I seek leave to make a ministerial statement.

Leave granted.

The Hon. J.D. HILL: Today, I announced that new regulations will be drafted under the Controlled Substances Act 1984 to mandate real-time recording and reporting of sales by pharmacists of products containing pseudoephedrine, and they will come into effect on 1 July this year. The government is committed to reducing the abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants, of which the precursor chemicals continue to be sourced from pharmacies and diverted for the manufacture of illicit drugs.

The pharmacy profession has done a great deal to reduce the sale of pseudoephedrine to only genuine customers in order to minimise diversion activities. The South Australian branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia advocated for real-time recording and reporting in South Australia. In fact, they came to me and very strongly put to me that the government should adopt on a mandatory basis what many of them were already doing on a voluntary basis. As a result of that lobbying, the government is introducing this scheme. The South Australian police is also supportive of the scheme as it will enable them to monitor and act more responsibly in relation to suspected diversion activities. Real-time recording and reporting have already been adopted in both Queensland and Western Australia.

Under the real-time recording and reporting system, recognised photographic identification will be required for the supply of medicines containing pseudoephedrine, in addition to information presently required under the regulations, such as name, address and date of supply. In many pharmacies, as I have said, request for identification is already commonplace. We want to make sure that pseudoephedrine, which is a very effective drug used in cold and flu tablets, is still available to consumers in our community who need those drugs in order to continue doing what they want to do but, of course, their need has to be balanced with the use of these drugs by those who want to access them to make illegal drugs.

Information will be entered into an electronic system which will alert select people within SA Police and the Department of Health to people pharmacy-hopping to obtain multiple supplies of pseudoephedrine medications. More crucially, pharmacists will also be able to see how many times a particular person has purchased pseudoephedrine and, if concerned, alert authorities. In fact, the pharmacists gave me anecdotal evidence when they put to me the case of a Victorian, I think, who travelled across the border and up through the towns of South Australia, going right up into the northern part of our state, collecting small packets of cold and flu tablets which contain pseudoephedrine, to take back to Victoria. I am also told that a handful of tablets—something like 24 tablets—can be converted into about $2,000 worth (street value) of amphetamine-style product.

The benefits of real-time recording are a reduction in public health harms associated with the manufacture and abuse of amphetamine-type stimulants, reduced drug-related crimes through the provision of more superior and timely online intelligence to law enforcement officers, and improved business efficiencies for pharmacies, health authorities and law enforcement agencies as reporting moves from paper-based to online.

The Pharmacy Guild of Australia advises that 80 per cent of South Australian pharmacies currently have the ability to undertake real-time reporting and recording and many are actually already participating. The social cost of amphetamines and other illicit drugs, I am told, is significant. The average total social cost in terms of health, crime and road accidents associated with amphetamine use each year—and I believe this is an Australian statistic—is an estimated $3.731 billion. The measures I have announced today are examples of the steps the government is taking to reduce illicit drug use in our community.