Pharmacies that offer cash incentives to drug addicts for their daily methadone prescriptions are under investigation by the B.C. College of Pharmacists and PharmaCare, the provincial government's drug-insurance plan.

Lou DeCou, a college spokesman, said there is an investigation underway but he declined to release any details.

Bernadette Murphy, a spokesperson for PharmaCare, said the provincial agency was working with other authorities.

Helen Weiss, a doctor who has been working at the Native Health Society Medical Centre for six years, said Monday that five or six pharmacies in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside have posed problems for years.

Methadone is prescribed to addicts as a substitute for heroin. To ensure the addicts consume the drug and do not resell it on the street, the pharmacists are expected to watch the addicts as they drink the methadone.

Weiss said she has heard from patients about pharmacies that allow addicts to walk out with the methadone without drinking it. She has heard of addicts drinking only a portion of the prescribed dose and carrying the rest out of the pharmacy under their jacket to resell.

She has also been told of places that pay addicts $10 as an incentive to bring their prescriptions to be filled daily at their outlet. The pharmacies receive $8.60 from PharmaCare to dispense a drug and an additional $7.70 for supervising a customer as they drink methadone.

Weiss said she raised the issue of cash incentives with the College of Pharmacists in January, after discussions with others at the clinic who had similar concerns.

In an internal memo distributed to medical staff, Weiss said the clinic was having increasing problems with patients aggressively seeking to have all their medications dispensed daily.

In another memo, she reported back to the clinic medical staff after speaking to PharmaCare about "unethical practices of local pharmacies.''

PharmaCare has received "numerous complaints,'' Dr. Weiss said.

But she was told that PharmaCare had been unsure how to proceed. Authorities had difficulty confronting the pharmacies without firm evidence from credible witnesses.

Meanwhile, a visit to Vancouver's Downtown Eastside revealed pharmacies unlike any others in Metro Vancouver.

At AYC Pharmacy a few doors east of the clinic, iron bars cover the windows and doors. A sandwich board on the sidewalk that says AYC is open seven days a week is the only indication that the store is a pharmacy.

Inside the building, the only area accessible to the public is a small vestibule with four white plastic chairs. Staff are behind a transparent Plexiglass window. Customers pass their prescription through a hole in the window, shouting loudly to be heard through the Plexiglass.

by Robert Matas of The Globe and Mail.