Warning Against Fake Drug Calls

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31247, 20 December 1966, Page 8

Warning Against Fake Drug Calls

The Pharmacy \ Board is concerned at th<| growing practice of receptionists and nurses of medical practitioners telephoning to chemists prescriptions for dangerour drugs and prescription poisons. In a circular to chemists, the board says that incidents in Christchurch concerning bogus prescriptions telephoned to chemists had prompted the Police Department to request that the attention of all pharmacists in general practice be drawn to their obligations under the dangerous drugs and poisons regulations. The telephoning of prescriptions was covered by regulations which required that the medical practitioner be personally known to the chemist. The communication of prescriptions by this method must be made by the medical practitioner himself, and not through an agent or servants, the circular said. As breaches of the regulations could render a chemist liable to prosecution and possible disciplinary action by the board, pharmacists were strongly advised to seek the co-operation of their local medical practitioners. According to an Auckland newspaper report, the Health Department, in a circular to doctors, has isued a warning

of a “sharp increase” in fake telephone prescriptions seeking narcotics, stimulants and sedatives. The Christchurch office of the department has a record of the Pharmacy Board circular, but not of the departmental letter, which, an official said could have been sent out only in the Auckland area. The Auckland report says that the situation had in the last 12 months become of concern to the Medical Council, the Pharmacy Board and the police, as well as the Health Departnent. “The people who attempt this deception, act out of some degree of habituation which has arisen from therapeutic as well as illicit use, or sometimes purely out of curiosity,” the circular is reported to have said. Increased departure from the ground rules for telephoning prescriptions had made it easier for successful deceptions. \