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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | July 2007 
Mexican Pharmaceutical Association Says Pseudoephedrine Ban Will Help US
 Associated Press
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 |  | Those consumers who went to the border aren't going to have that option anymore.
- Pascual Feria |  | | Mexico City - Mexico's near-total ban on medicines containing pseudoephedrine will benefit the United States by eliminating border drug stores' bulk sales of the drug that can be used to produce methamphetamines, the head of National Pharmacy Association said Wednesday.
Last week, Mexico ordered stores to pull medicines containing the substance off their shelves by Aug. 31.
The new rules will require a prescription for subsequent sales of pseudoephedrine compounds. In practice, the pharmacies say, the new hurdles will cause the compounds to disappear from the Mexican market.
Association president Antonio Pascual Feria said Mexico is one of the first nations to implement such strict restrictions and could serve as an example for other countries or the basis of an international agreement to limit the substance.
"Those consumers who went to the border aren't going to have that option anymore," Pascual Feria told reporters. "In that sense, we are helping them (the United States), as well."
Feria said "the demand was very high" among Americans who used to cross the border to buy large quantities of pills containing pseudoephedrine. The substance is used in medicines to relieve nasal or sinus congestion and respiratory allergies but also is considered a precursor to make meth, a highly addictive stimulant.
Before Mexico started cracking down three years ago — placing the pills behind the counter at drug stores, and limiting "extraordinary" large shipments to border pharmacies — the country had become a major importer of pseudoephedrine, which is not manufactured here.
Much of that went into illicit meth production. Mexican cartels supplied about 80 percent of the meth sold in the U.S. market, U.S. officials estimate.
"The problem had gotten out of hand," said Feria, adding that druggists in Mexico generally agreed with the measure.
The new restrictions go much further than the United States' rules.
The United States still allows pseudoephedrine to be sold as an over-the-counter drug, but stores must limit direct access to the medicine, limit the amount customers can buy, and require identification and a signature for each purchase.
Feria added that the strict rules could lead to the substance no longer being marketable in Mexico. He said that 80 percent of medicines that previously used the substance have switched to phenylephrine or other similar substances that can't be used to make meth. The rest are expected to make similar changes.
He estimated that only about 10 million of the older cold pills are still on the market in Mexico. |
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