Yellowknife (July 16/04) - Pharmacist Stephen Gwilliam gestured toward a rack of decongestants in Sutherland Drugs and sighed.

"As soon as they realize how cheap this stuff is to make..." he mused, referring to d-methamphetamine, the drug known on the street as crystal meth.

Cindy Dolynny, a pharmacist at Shoppers Drug Mart, with some of the medications used to make crystal meth. - Alex Glancy/NNSL photo

Principle in its manufacture is pseudoephedrine, a decongestant found in many off-the-shelf medications like Sudafed and Sinutab.

It is turned relatively simply, with easily obtainable instructions, into potent and destructive crystal meth.

He said the attraction of the drug to users is great: it is cheap to make, and the high produced can last 18 times longer than that of crack-cocaine.

It is also "highly, highly addictive," he said.

In an attempt to combat small-scale production of the drug, the Alberta College of Pharmacists recommended earlier this month that pharmacies move products with pseudoephedrine and ephedrine behind the counters.

The British Columbia College of Pharmacists made a similar recommendation.

Compliance is voluntary, but already appears widespread.

Ephedrine, which can also be used to produce methamphetamines, appears in diet pills (although its addition is banned in Canada), energy boosters and performance enhancers.

The products are often sold in health and supplement stores, and consequently are not regulated by pharmacists.

Right direction

Crystal meth is not yet a problem in the NWT, but Cpl. Larry O'Brien, the RCMP's "G" division drug awareness co-ordinator, called the move by the pharmacists a step in the right direction.

"Anything helps," he said.

Pharmacists in Yellowknife, some of whom are members of the Alberta and B.C. colleges, appear willing to follow the recommendation.

Wal-Mart has already moved single-entity products such as decongestants that contain unadulterated pseudoephedrine to the dispensary.

Daryl Dolynny, the owner of Shoppers Drug Mart pharmacy and the president of the NWT Pharmaceutical Association, plans to join the move in the next week or two.

"The bottom line is vigilance," he said. "Staying ahead of the game is the biggest and most important thing."

As president of the association, he said that he knew the Alberta College's recommendation was coming. The issue was raised at the last general meeting of the association, about a month ago, and there was a universal consensus in favour of compliance.

Dolynny was quick to emphasize that normal use will not be affected by the measure.

"The idea is that we want to monitor and intervene but not interfere" with customers, he said.

A cap on quantities sold in a single transaction is unlikely, Dolynny said, because the geography of the NWT is such that customers from outside Yellowknife often buy large quantities of medication at a time.

In the end, it will be a question of "professional discretion," he said.

At Sutherland Drugs, Gwilliam pointed out that moving pseudoephedrine medications will allow him to supervise purchases, and negate theft of the drugs.

Theft is a threat given the amount of pseudoephdrine required to produce meth: 780 decongestant pills produce approximately an ounce of the drug.

Gwilliam says he will likely follow the recommendation, but was skeptical about its usefulness. He pointed out that virtually anything in his pharmacy can harm a person if taken in too large a dose, and to move everything lethal to the dispensary would make it as large as the store itself.

Cpl. O'Brien approves of the pharmacists' proactive contribution, but said that it will not prevent crystal meth making its way to the NWT.

The drug will be here before the labs, and the ephedrine-pseudoephedrine method is only one method of making it, he said.

He added that the measure applies mostly to small-scale manufacturers, and putting the drug beyond easy reach is "not going to stop the major players."

Crystal meth is not yet popular

Although the RCMP does not have information on where the drug is coming from, O'Brien suspects that the NWT's small supply originates in Edmonton, and in the Hinton-Whitecourt corridor of Alberta.

He said crystal meth is not yet popular in the NWT.

"We have a very staid drug culture in Yellowknife," he said.

The most popular drug in town is still marijuana, and the heroin scare a few years ago did not escalate. "Crack cocaine is still our big problem in town, and it's not time to switch our focus to another drug," he said.