Pubdate: Tue, 15 Feb 2005
Source: Charleston Daily Mail (WV)
Copyright: 2005 Charleston Daily Mail
Contact:  http://www.dailymail.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/76
Author: Jim Wallace
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

PROPOSED METH LAW WILL COST, PHARMACISTS SAY

West Virginia pharmacists say citizens will have to expect Sudafed and 
similar decongestants to be more expensive with fewer varieties available 
if lawmakers approve Gov. Joe Manchin's bill to fight the creation and use 
of methamphetamines.

But they and legislative leaders say the bill is needed, although not 
necessarily in the same form as the governor proposed.

Manchin's bill is based on a law in Oklahoma that limits the amount of 
products containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth, that 
customers can buy at one time. It requires them to be dispensed by a 
pharmacist and for customers to produce identification and sign for them.

Although Manchin said in his State of the State address that the Oklahoma 
law reduced the number of meth labs in that state by 60 percent, other 
reports say the reduction is closer to 80 percent. It has been so 
successful that many states and the federal government are considering 
legislation based on it, but pharmacists warn that it will come at a cost.

"It creates another burden for pharmacists to deal with," said Keith 
Foster, a pharmacist at Colony Drug and Wellness Center in Beckley. "There 
are expenses involved that probably will drive up the price of the products."

Richard Stevens, a lobbyist for the West Virginia Pharmacists Association, 
said that anytime drugs are put behind the pharmacy counter instead of 
being openly available on drug store shelves, their costs go up.

"You can only have registered technicians behind the counter, so these are 
the higher-paid positions in a pharmacy," he said. "Then you've got the 
inventory control. You've got your reporting to distributors and 
wholesalers. The DEA (Drug Enforcement Agency) is involved there. Then you 
have to do the reporting of each transaction to the repository."

But Stevens said it's too soon to determine how much the cost of the drugs 
will increase.

"That depends on the individual pharmacies and what their operating costs 
are because these are not going to be products that are going to be 
reimbursed by insurance companies," he said. "You might find some 
pharmacies that may just choose to carry fewer products, since they have to 
put them behind the counter."

But Stevens, Foster and Barbara Smith, a pharmacist at Staats Pharmacy in 
Spencer, said they support Manchin's effort to reduce the proliferation of 
dangerous meth labs across the state.

"Innocent people are getting hurt, and lives are being destroyed," Smith 
said. "It would seem to be at epidemic proportions right now. I do feel 
there needs to be control of it somehow to track sales."

Lawmakers are just beginning to take a good look at the bill Manchin 
submitted to them last week.

"Before the week's out, I'm sure we'll have some discussions," Senate 
President Earl Ray Tomblin, D-Logan, said.

Last month's special session got some major issues out of the way for 
lawmakers, so they can concentrate now on legislation like the meth bill, 
he said.

House Judiciary Chairman Jon Amores, D-Kanawha, said he expects a working 
group on the bill to meet by the end of the week to consider some problems 
that pharmacists have found in Manchin's proposal.

"Some of that's very technical," Amores said. "They need experts in the 
field to kind of educate us on some of that. I think the point of that 
education isn't to stop the bill, but it's hopefully to create a better 
bill, one that can be practically implemented."

Foster said one example of the problem pharmacists might have with the bill 
is that it would prohibit a person from purchasing more than nine grams of 
pseudoephedrine or similar substances within a 30-day period, but keeping 
track of that could be difficult. He said each tablet of Sudafed and 
similar products contains 30 milligrams of the drug, so it would take 300 
tablets to make up nine grams.

House Minority Leader Charles Trump, R-Morgan, said lawmakers would "have 
to strike a balance between action to address that problem and the 
legitimate uses that many people make of Sudafed and that related family of 
drugs, which apparently are real effective for the common cold."

House Speaker Bob Kiss, D-Raleigh, said, "I'm sure we can find a way to 
pass it in a form that's acceptable to the governor."

Manchin said he's willing to consider reasonable changes to his bill.

"We're willing to work in any common sense manner in order to reduce the 
epidemic proportion of users and meth labs themselves," he said. "Every 
time we send police in, we send law enforcement into harm's way."

Manchin added that lawmakers must do something this year.

"It's just too readily available and too cheap a drug, and it has 
disastrous effects on society as a whole," he said. "It's horribly, 
horribly, horribly addictive."

Foster said pharmacists agree with that but regret what the changes will 
mean for their customers.

"Ultimately, it's the patients who will suffer for the few people who are 
illegitimately using the ingredients," he said.
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