Beijing pharmacies restrict cold medicine purchase to curb illegal drug processing

BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Chinese media) -- Drugstores in Beijing on Monday began to

restrict the purchase of cold medicines containing ephedrine to prevent illegal

abstracting of the element to make drugs.

The regulation was applied to about 30 kinds of commonly-used cold and

cough medicines. Customers were allowed to buy no more than five of the smallest

packages of the medicines at a time.

The move was adopted in line with a circular issued by the State Food and

Drug Administration last Friday, which said that police had found ephedrine was

abstracted from cold medicines by criminals to make the drug 'Ice' in some parts

of the country.

Cong Luoluo, a spokesman with the Beijing Drug Administration, said the

regulation wouldn't cause inconvenience to people's normal drugs use, as the

smallest package of a medicine referred to a box or a bottle, which usually

could satisfy a week's dosage.

Cong said there was no need for people to worry about taking such medicines

as they contained a tiny amount of ephedrine. So long as patients take it

following a doctors' prescription, they will not become drug addicts, he

said.