SEVERAL arrests later, there is little dent in the illicit street trading of pharmaceuticals, and it has emerged that some legitimate pharmacies are a source of drugs sold in back-door deals – a claim made by one illegal dispenser in Kingston’s downtown market district and confirmed by health and law enforcement officials.

The street trade proliferates both in Kingston and Spanish Town, says one detective, Corporal Kirk Roach, who in the past four months has made seven busts of roadside ‘pharamcists’ in the old capital.

“They get them from legitimate sources such as pharmacies, and others are smuggled here,” said Roach, who has also policed the black market in Kingston.

Now the regulators of legitimate pharmacies are on a crackdown of the dangerous trade, using undercover field agents to spy on registered drug dispensers in a bid to keep them honest.

Six Kingston pharmacies are currently under watch, suspected of illegitmate sales by regulator, the Pharmaceutical Council of Jamaica (PCJ).

“We have gotten calls about six of these pharmacies that are selling the drugs to customers without the prescription, but we can’t prove it as yet,” said Lois Owen, registrar at the Pharmaceutical Council.

“We have been watching them, and we are just waiting to catch them.”

Their names were withheld so as not to undermine the investigations, but the six are not alone on the list of alleged violators.

Two other pharmacists are currently before the courts answering to charges, and within a two-year span, three others have been warned and had their licences suspended for short periods.

The Pharmaceutical Council sets, and polices, standards in terms of the conduct of the persons registered under the Pharmacy Act as well as general compliance in the dispensing of registered drugs.

Owen said a number of pharmacies have been found, over time, to be in violation of regulations set out by the council. But the PCJ, in its watchdog role, appears to favour lectures over legal sanctions.

The pharmacies found selling items without prescriptions, or in violation of other rules and standards, are warned and if they fail to comply with the rules then the licences are suspended.

Owen claims the upbraidings work.

“We call them in and speak to them strongly and then give then a period of time to comply, and that normally scares them straight,” she said. “If they fail to comply, that is when we prosecute.”

So far this year, the council has warned about four pharmacies – some for illicit sales and some because their facilities were not up to standard.

“We now have two cases in court and we have evidence,” said Owen, appearing confident of successful prosecution.

But she refused to name the two, and up to press time Sunday Observer checks with the courts and the police could not ascertain where those cases were being heard and who the charges were against.

Between 2003 and 2005, the licences of three pharmacies were also suspended for different periods of three months to a year.

Owen named them as Best Care Pharmacy in Montego Bay, Haughton’s Pharmacy in Mandeville and New Life Pharmacy in May Pen.

In New Life’s case, the registrar said, the pharmacy was penalised because a pharmacist attempted to second guess a doctor and altered a patient’s prescription without the doctor’s permission.

The MoBay pharmacy, when contacted for comment, denied the suspension; while Haughton’s said it would neither confirm nor deny it.

Owen has conceded that the pharmaceutical black market is very difficult to monitor. It can also be dangerous. But PCJ officers, she said, are making every effort to clamp down on the back door sales.

“We sometimes have the assistance of the public in keeping an eye on them,” she said. “But it is difficult.”

The black market is also a source of supply for pseudo-pharmacists who dispense drugs such as antibiotics and antidepressants on the streets for a couple hundred dollars – both of which can do serious harm if not prescribed properly.

These drugs, no matter their properties, are being sold and ‘prescribed’ mostly as sexual stimulants, jeopardising the health of unsuspecting consumers.

Two Sunday Observer journalists, posing as a couple, bought antidepressant – the street name of which is ‘Bomb’ – for $200 from a downtown vendor, who insisted it could control ejaculation, and was a good substitute for Viagra, which was much more expensive. (See story on Page 4 detailing that transaction).

There is also the danger of improperly stored drugs deteriorating, and, as a result, they become harmful to anyone that ingests them. Expired medications have also been confiscated from the so-called suitcase pharmacists.

Detective Roach, who transferred from the Kingston Central police station to the Spanish Town CIB four months ago, has made a number of arrests of fake pharmacists.

His most recent was just over a month ago where four men – Rollington Roach, Anthony Reid, Junior Kow and Daves Barnes, all of St Catherine addresses – were prosecuted and fined a little over half a million dollars, collectively.

But altogether, Detective Roach said that he has arrested about 12 persons since 1999, which includes Everton Nelson who was fined $150,000 in February of this year.

Most of the persons that Detective Roach has arrested were caught with drugs such as Viagra, Postinor 2, and antibiotics such as Lidoderm (for relief of pain associated with post-herpetic neuralgia), Stud 100, which is illegal in Jamaica,) as well as Retardin, an oinment used to delay ejaculation.

“Once we held a man and we found some of these pharmaceuticals on him and when we went to his house we found even more of them,” the policeman said.

Additionally, last month Phillip Barker, 48, of Portmore, St Catherine, who was held with unlawful prescription and over the counter drugs and other pharmaceutical products was convicted and sentenced to nine months in prison.

Barker was detained by police in the downtown Kingston market district. He was found with items such as cod liver oil capsules, Ibuprofen painkillers, eye drops and antibiotic skin ointment, some of which had expired.

There is some anecdotal evidence of health problems arising from the ingesting and or application of illicitly acquired pharmaceuticals.

“People have been suspected to have died from this kind of things,” said Roach.

He said that steroid and bleaching creams are also popular on the black market and he has seen the negative effects of using counterfeit creams.

“I have seen persons where their skin is completely damaged because they unknowably used fake bleaching cream,” he told Sunday Observer.

The health ministry admits to documenting some complaints, but insists they are few.

Not so clear, however, is whether the problems stem from wrong application of legitimate drugs or the correct application of fake drugs.

The health ministry insists that Jamaica has no real problems with fake drugs, a claim supported by Lester Woolery, executive director of the pharmaceutical division of the Lasco Group, an agent and distributor of prescribed and over-the- counter drugs (OTCs).

Woolery, a licensed pharmacist and former head of the Standards and Regulations Division at the health ministry, played an integral role in the development of Jamaica’s Food and Drug Act of 1964.

He said Jamaica does not have a problem as it relates to counterfeit medication as there are strict guidelines and regulations, which pertains to the importation of medication.

For example, any drug that is sent to Jamaica has to be accompanied by a certificate of analysis, which states whether the tablets have met international specifications.

The importers are also required to obtain a permit from the ministry. The prescription drugs are also tested by the government chemist as well as the Caribbean Regional Drug Testing Lab for microbiology – a test of contamination – and pharmacology which determines the drug’s properties and how it works.

Woolery’s claim aside, the police have said that some drugs are smuggled in, and those items do not face the rigour of the standards division tests.