Health Minister Sabrina Turner has said law changes and new rules on opioid use are in the works as she flagged a “growing recreational market for prescription opioids” in Cayman.
These drugs, she told legislators Thursday morning in Parliament, “are believed to be being sold illegally on island and often used alongside cocaine powder and ganja”.
Turner, who was responding to a parliamentary question from Opposition Leader Roy McTaggart, said the ministry intends to bring amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act to address the “hallucinogenic substances and amphetamine derivatives,” currently not included in the law.
At that time, she said, the penalties for offences will also be reviewed “to ensure that they fit the circumstances of the case”.
McTaggart had raised the issue of access to the drugs and had questioned whether government would be introducing any new legislation or tougher sentences for the importation and selling of these drugs in Cayman.
Incidents of fentanyl being seized by Customs and Border Control officials have been on the rise, with the most recent on 24 Feb. 2023 when, during the inspection of a parcel at the Airport Post Office, officers discovered 200 fentanyl tablets concealed in an incoming package.
Three people were arrested in connection with that seizure.
Prescribed in Cayman
Turner said that medicines containing oxycodone and benzodiazepine tranquillisers “are very commonly prescribed in the Cayman Islands and therefore readily available”.
Based on discussion with the RCIPS, she said, it is believed that there is a growing recreational market for prescription opioids containing oxycodone (OxyContin, Percocet), and fentanyl tablets, “which are highly addictive”.
“We also believe that the benzodiazepine tranquilliser alprazolam (Xanax) is being regularly used as a recreational drug. Medicines containing oxycodone and benzodiazepine tranquillisers are very commonly prescribed in the Cayman Islands and therefore readily available,” she said.
Though the Misuse of Drugs Act (2017) is the primary controlling legislation for all of these drugs, she said, the schedule of substances that it controls “is not comprehensive”.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. Nick Gent, she said, has advised that significant quantities of controlled drugs are currently imported into the Cayman Islands as prescription medicines.
“Currently no monitoring of the prescribing of such medicines is undertaken, nor are there any national standards on safekeeping of such medicines and the assured destruction of unused medicines,” Turner said.
Earlier this year, Health Services Authority Chief Pharmacist Colin Medford raised concern over this issue.
The chief medical officer is accountable for the permission to import medicines containing controlled drugs that are identified in the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, an international treaty that is binding on the Cayman Islands, she added.
“Section 14 of the Misuse of Drugs Act allows the CMO to make rules for inspection, keeping of inventories, and the general control and distribution of controlled drugs by authorised persons, such as doctors, pharmacists, dentists and veterinary surgeons,” she said.
The chief medical officer, she said, will issue a written notice shortly to “all registered practitioners, notifying them of the implementation of rules for prescribing, dispensing, record keeping, safe storage, and destruction of unused medicines”.
This, she said, is to ensure that there is national monitoring of the use of such medicines, and that there are common standards on the safe management of such.
“The reporting rules will apply to all types of opiates, amphetamines, amphetamine derivatives, cannabinol, cannabinol derivatives, cannabis resin, barbiturates, methylphenidate [Ritalin] and codeine-containing medicines,” she said.
These reports are to be made to the chief medical officer quarterly, she said, and will comprise aggregate numbers of prescriptions, by type of medicine and by prescriber.
“These reports will not contain patient-identifiable information. Similar requirements will be placed on wholesale pharmacies to ensure that the importation, supply, and use of controlled medicines can be reconciled across the Cayman Islands,” she said.
Related Videos
