Laganside Crown Court, on Friday, sentenced Gerard Cullinan, a 48-year-old pharmacist and Director of Castlereagh Pharmacy Ltd in East Belfast, for
unlawfully supplying controlled prescription medicines, including co-codamol and fentanyl, and for failing to maintain controlled drugs registers.
Cullinan was sentenced to 11 months imprisonment, suspended for three years, and his pharmacy was fined £8,000.
The sentencing follows an investigation by the Department of Health's Medicines Regulatory Group (MRG), which uncovered that Cullinan's pharmacy on Castlereagh
Road had illegally supplied over 300,000 co-codamol tablets between January 2017 and June 2020.
Additionally, the MRG investigation identified significant breaches in record-keeping for Class A controlled drugs such as fentanyl, tapentadol, methylphenidate,
morphine, and oxycodone.
"It is a serious criminal offence to sell or supply prescription only medicines without a prescription," said Peter Moore, Senior Medicines Enforcement Officer at
the MRG, who led the investigation.
The number of people suffering from addiction is at an all time high, with more people seeking treatment across the USA due to the fentanyl crisis, but new
studies have shown that addiction drugs may not only be able to aid those suffering from the deadly disease, but also aid people suffering from long COVID.
While there has long been research underway to find a cure for the likes of alcoholism and drug addiction, it turns out naltrexone, a drug used in the addiction
treatment space, is helping people who have been suffering from headaches, seizures and fatigue as a result of long COVID.
According to Dr. Paul Valbuena at The River Source, an Arizona drug rehab, naltrexone is typically used by rehab centers and prescribed to patients suffering from
addiction to reduce cravings and the feeling of euphoria associated with substance use disorder, giving patients clarity and focus to concentrate on recovery.
Thanks to a recent report, that has also been revealed to be the case for those suffering with long COVID too, with Lauren Nichols, a long COVID sufferer from Chicago
being prescribed the drug by her doctor.
She found that the drug helped quell her seizures and headaches, alowing her to think clearly and get on with her life as normal. It's been a similar story for other
patients too, and has marked a major breakthrough in the bid to help those who are still suffering in the aftermath of the pandemic.