A health ministry panel has compiled a draft report conditionally removing the ban on overnight videophone-based sales of over-the-counter drugs by retailers.
The report, compiled this week by pharmaceutical experts for the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry, calls for authorizing such sales at retailers capable of receiving pharmacists' instructions, officials said.
But the experts said the retailers should still not be allowed to sell certain types of designated medicines with potential side effects or drugs with poisonous ingredients.
The draft report specifies 11 conditions a videophone-based retailer would have to observe to qualify for such business.
One would oblige retailers to have pharmacists ready to go to their stores in the event that purchasers of drugs later complain of sudden side effects, they said.
Under the proposal, retailers would be allowed to arrange for pharmacists at a central location to give instructions to customers seeking appropriate medicines from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.
But the retailers would be obliged to have pharmacists physically present on a full-time basis during operating hours outside the special time period.
Retailers opting to sell medicines from late at night to morning via videophones would have to notify prefectural or municipal governments of their plans.
Other conditions would include calling on operators of retail chains to either arrange for a pharmacist to visit each outlet at least once a night or have shop clerks report nightly what drugs they sold and to what sorts of customers.
The panel began deliberations after the discount chain Don Quijote Co. began selling drugs overnight, using videophones to have pharmacists give instructions to shop clerks.