Born in 1946 and brought up in Cupar, Fife, I was educated at the local school - 
by Jamie Buchan, Press & Journal
A Major pharmaceutical firm will today be urged to rethink its plans to restrict the supply of its medicines which could cause problems for rural pharmacies in the north-east.
Representatives of global drugs giant Pfizer will meet with north-east MSPs Stewart Stevenson and Maureen Watt in Holyrood following concerns that the firm's controversial new arrangements could be a threat to local pharmacies.
Pfizer have introduced a new system which results in the company's medicines being distributed exclusively by UniChem.
But worried pharmacists say the move could put the security of patient medicines in the north and north-east at risk, forcing them to deal with a wholesale firm which has no distribution depots north of Livingston.
Mr Stevenson has visited community pharmacies at Cruden Bay and New Deer to discuss the potential impact of the new arrangement.
He said last night: "Pfizer may be one of the biggest pharmaceutical corporations in the world, but it is clear in this case that they have either not understood the situation in the north of Scotland or have deliberately ignored the difficulties they will create."
Mr Stevenson added: "What we have here is an example of global corporation riding roughshod over the needs of its customers and dictating not only the terms and conditions of how community pharmacies should run their business, but also who they should give their business to."
He said he had been contacted by local pharmacists who were "up in arms" about the proposals.
"I will be looking for some recognition by Pfizer that they have created a potentially huge problem here, and that they have simply not understood the realities of running a business such as a pharmacy in the rural north of Scotland," Mr Stevenson said.
"I will be urging them to think again about this anti-rural policy."
A spokeswoman for Pfizer said the new arrangements would counter the current "vulnerability" of the medicine supply chain in Britain. She said that last year there were three separate cases of counterfeit drugs found and gangs had targeted the supply chain.
New jobs have also been created at the UniChem depot at Livingston near Edinburgh to handle the new arrangements.
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Karen Adam is now the MSP for Banffshire and Buchan Coast
