Pubdate: Sun, 05 Jun 2005
Source: Southeast Missourian (MO)
Copyright: 2005 Southeast Missourian
Contact:  http://www.semissourian.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1322
Author: Sam Hananel, The Associated Press

FEDERAL BILLS TARGET SALE OF COLD PILLS

WASHINGTON -- The days of buying certain cold remedies off the drugstore
shelf may soon be gone, a casualty of the methamphetamine epidemic. Picking
up on laws already passed in more than a dozen states, Congress is thinking
about requiring the nation's retailers to sell medicines like Sudafed behind
the pharmacy counter to make it harder to get the ingredients needed to make
highly addictive meth.

A similar law in Kansas took effect this week, and a bill in Missouri is
awaiting Gov. Matt Blunt's signature.

Retailers, who once resisted the idea as burdensome for consumers, now seem
ready to go along with it in hopes of avoiding a tangle of state
regulations. This month, a Senate committee will hold hearings on a bill
that places sharp new restrictions on the sale of cold and allergy pills
containing pseudoephedrine, which is used to "cook" meth in makeshift labs
across the country.

"There's a lot of public pressure to do something," said Sen. Jim Talent,
R-Mo., who together with Sen. Diane Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced a bill
to limit the sale of cold medicines. "I think retailers -- most of them --
do not want to sell their products to meth cooks and they know they have to
do something."

Their bill, modeled on an Oklahoma law that took effect in April 2004,
requires medicines with pseudoephedrine to be sold only by a pharmacist or
pharmacy personnel. Customers would have to show a photo ID, sign a log and
be limited to 9 grams -- or about 300 30-milligram pills -- in a 30-day
period. The government can make exceptions in areas where pharmacies are not
easily accessible.

Some stores, like Target and Wal-Mart, have already adopted their own
guidelines to move cold products behind pharmacy counters. And last month,
the National Association of Chain Drug Stores endorsed a set of principles
that includes limiting access to the drugs.

"We do think it's time for a federal solution," said Mary Ann Wagner, the
association's vice president of pharmacy regulatory affairs. "It's just
becoming so complicated when you look at a map across the country and no two
laws are anything alike."

Supported by Pfizer

The drug industry has not raised major objections to federal legislation.
Jay Kosminsky, a spokesman for Pfizer, which makes Sudafed, said the company
supports having a national standard that would put pseudoephedrine behind
the counter.

"I do think there really is an opportunity for a national consensus on this
issue and I don't think there was a year ago," Kosminsky said.

Talent said he and Feinstein plan to unveil a new version of their bill this
month that addresses some of the concerns of retailers. The updated measure
would, for example, carve out exemptions for children's cold medicines,
where the pseudoephedrine is too difficult to extract.

House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., is revising a similar bill in the
House and has made meth enforcement one of his top priorities.

The biggest problem for retailers, Wagner said, is requiring a pharmacist to
sell the medication. She said store personnel should be able to make sales
as long as they are under the pharmacist's supervision.

The effect on sales is a key issue. In Oklahoma, where pharmacists must
supervise transactions, cold medicine sales have dropped. Sales have not
suffered in Illinois, which has less restrictive rules and allows other
store workers to dispense the drugs.

The Bush administration has not taken a formal position on the
Talent-Feinstein bill. But John Horton, associate deputy director for state
and local affairs for the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy, said early signs show state laws are having a positive effect.

An ONDCP report issued last month found there has been a 50 percent drop in
the number of meth labs in Oklahoma and Oregon, two of the first states to
enact laws restricting the purchase of pseudoephedrine-containing products.

"We know that when we prevent the methamphetamine cooks from getting the
ingredients they need to make the meth, that the problem becomes smaller,"
Horton said.

Horton estimates about a third of the meth comes from small labs in the
United States, while two-thirds is smuggled in bulk from big labs outside
the country, mainly Mexico.

The meth problem is particularly bad in the Midwest, where rural areas
provide cover for the pungent chemical odor coming from meth labs. In
Missouri, law enforcement officials seized more than 2,700 meth labs last
year, more than any other state.

"The labs themselves are a huge problem in communities," Talent said. "They
are toxic waste dumps, they're fire hazards, they're threats to children and
they're overwhelming law enforcement."
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