The Japanese Red Cross Medical Center said Wednesday it has been using a high-tech paper designed with money-printing technology to help prevent forgery of drug prescriptions.
The paper, to be used nationwide, comes amid a rash of forged prescriptions in Tokyo used to obtain sleeping pills, stimulants and other drugs without a doctor's consent.
Drug enforcement officials at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government say that 23 drug stores reported faked prescriptions in 1999 and 14 have been found so far this year.
The Health and Welfare Ministry has issued precautionary directives to hospitals and pharmacies across the nation.
Taku Takagi, a spokesman for the Red Cross Medical Center, said there have been no reports of forgery since the paper was introduced in April.
The paper, which will be presented at a medical conference of the Japanese Red Cross Society opening today in Fukuoka, has three distinctive features designed to block forgery attempts.
One of them involves an antiforgery printing technique that would generate the word "COPY" on any copy taken from the original. Another feature is the use of a special ink that turns the Red Cross insignia into a watermark.
The third preventive measure is the use of a microscript that appears on currency bills and becomes illegible when copied.
According to Red Cross Medical Center officials, the high-tech prescription paper, developed jointly with a Tokyo printing company, costs just 2 yen each to produce.