JACKSON — Mississippi is poised to become only the second state in the nation to require a doctor”s prescription for cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in the illicit drug methamphetamine.
The Senate on Tuesday sent to the governor a bill that supporters say is designed to curtail the state”s escalating meth activity. The House earlier passed the bill. Gov. Haley Barbour supports the legislation.
The law would go into effect July 1. Oregon passed a similar law in 2006.
Only four senators voted against the bill. They were Sens. John Horhn, D-Jackson; Walter Michel, R-Jackson; Willie Simmons, D-Cleveland; and Chris McDaniel, R-Ellisville.
Dozens of law enforcement officials, including Bureau of Narcotics Director Marshall Fisher, were in the Senate gallery listening to the debate. Many of them have said they”re “sick” of the toll the drug has taken across the state, where 981 arrests were made in 2009 and nearly 600 meth labs were seized.
Pelahatchie Police Chief Glenda Shoemaker called the legislation “a blessing.” Shoemaker said meth has become a problem in her town of 1,500, located in central Mississippi. She said four meth labs have been busted in recent years, a significant number for her town”s size.
“These are people I know. People I love. I can”t do anything for them, and it just makes me want to cry,” Shoemaker said, referring to local addicts.
Drug manufacturers had lobbied lawmakers for a real-time tracking system instead of the prescription bill. They”ve said the prescription bill will likely lead to meth addicts and cooks crossing state lines to get the ingredients.
Andy Fish, senior vice president of Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a group that represents over-the-counter drug manufacturers, said Mississippi had taken a step back in the fight against meth.
“By turning down a sophisticated electronic tracking system in favor of prescription status, Mississippi will be allowing meth cooks to move from doctor to doctor and from clinic to clinic to amass large amounts of pseudoephedrine,” Fish said.
Senate Judiciary B Committee Chairman Gray Tollison, D-Oxford, said the legislation would require prescriptions for about 10 drugs: Advil Cold and Sinus, Aleve D, Bronkaid, Claritin D, Mucinex D, Nyquil D, Primatene, Sudafed, Tylenol Sinus Severe Cold and Zyrtec D.
However, Tollison said there were still 24 other products available to treat cold symptoms that are manufactured with the drug phenylephrine.
Not everyone is pleased about the bill. Letha Wiley, a 62-year-old from Sardis, said putting the restrictions on pseudoephedrine, a decongestant, won”t stop meth addicts.
“That”s the dumbest thing I”ve ever heard. Everybody can”t afford to go to the doctor,” Wiley said. “(Addicts) are going to do what they want to do. Lawmakers have got more important issues to deal with.”
Tollison said after Oregon passed its law, the number of meth labs decreased by 96 percent.
Tollison said the drug is also costly to combat.
Meth cooks have graduated from the typical labs to a new “shake and bake” method of manufacturing the drug. The pills are crushed, combined with some common household chemicals and then shaken in the soda bottle. The latest method can, however, still produce powerful explosions.
Cleaning a contaminated meth site could cost the state as much as $7,000, Tollison said.
There were several unsuccessful attempts to amend the bill, including proposals to limit to $5 and $10 the fee doctors could charge for a prescription and to create a task force to study the issue.
Fish said the pseudoephedrine sales in Mississippi are only a fraction of the national market.
“The issue at stake is not our profits here, but consumer access to a needed medicine and the opportunity for Mississippi to lead the nation in the next step of the meth lab fight,” Fish said.
Similar prescription legislation has been introduced in Georgia, Missouri and Washington, according to CHPA.
The bill is House Bill 512.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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