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. - ---