DRUG dealers in the US are buying cold cures over the counter and converting
them into street drugs. The remedies contain pseudoephedrine salts, which
illicit drugs factories can convert into pure methamphetamine (speed).
Warner-Lambert, the pharmaceuticals company which makes Sudafed nasal
decongestant, says it will soon announce a scheme that makes the process
鈥減ractically impossible鈥�.
Many decongestants contain pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, which can be turned
into methamphetamine using techniques described in underground books.
鈥淲e are aware of the abuse,鈥� says Nanna Bashi of Warner-Lambert鈥檚
over-the-counter drug advisory service. 鈥淭he Sudafed problem is still mainly in
the US. But we have heard of abuse in Scotland with other pseudoephedrine drugs.
We are now at the final stages of research into a global solution.鈥�
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International patent application W0 97/37689, filed last year by
Warner-Lambert鈥檚 head office in New Jersey, warns that methamphetamine abuse is
becoming 鈥渋ncreasingly common鈥�, and Californian hospitals have seen a 300 per
cent increase in cases over the past ten years.
The drug company will now add sulphur and ammonium salts to its tablets,
along with polyethylene oxide gum and sodium laurel sulphate surfactant. The
sulphur and ammonium produce a foul smell during the synthesis of the illegal
drug, and the gum and surfactant block the purification process.
In tests with the extra chemicals, the amount of pseudoephedrine recovered
from Sudafed fell from 89 per cent to zero, while that from generic equivalents
dropped from 98 per cent to zero.