Pharmacist leads calls for tighter legislation on prescription drugs - Save The Next One
A leading health official has called for greater controls around prescription drugs.
Joe Brogan, Head of Pharmacy at the Health and Social Care Board, said certain drugs are creating issues for health services here.
He highlighted the growing use of Pregabalin on the streets of Northern Ireland, more commonly known as Buds or Lyrica.
"One class of drugs that hasn't necessarily got the same class of controls is Lyrica," he said.
"We've seen the deaths associated with those types of medicines increase year after year."
It is primarily a drug used to treat epilepsy, turning down the amount of signals firing from the brain.
"You can imagine if somebody is not epileptic and start using it in doses not clinically indicated, it's going to start dampening down all the signals coming out of the brain," he said.
"That will hit the heart, it will hit the lungs.
"That will lead to effects on the heart, like cardio-toxicity, where the heart will stop beating.
"Or it can lead to respiratory depressions where the lungs stop working and that inevitably leads to death."
Mr Brogan said health departments have already identified this drug as a major issue and plans have been initiated to try and tackle it.
"We have worked with the Home Office to raise our concerns," he said.
"Hopefully this year we will see a change in legislation which will tighten the control associated with the supply and prescription of Pregabalin."
Pharmacists have also been encouraged to take note of people they think may be struggling with an addiction problem and direct them towards useful services.
Another measure is the confidential sharing of information between pharmacies to try and stop people from travelling from one place to the next to source drugs.
If you wish to contact us to tell us your story of how drugs have impacted your life, you can do so by emailing news@downtown.co.uk or if you wish to seek help for addiction issues, more information can be found here.