Pubdate: Wed, 09 Feb 2005
Source: Courier-Journal, The (KY)
/502090398/1025
Copyright: 2005 The Courier-Journal
Contact:  http://www.courier-journal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/97
Author: Lesley Stedman Weidenbener
Note: Only publishes local LTEs

SENATE BILL TARGETS METH MAKERS

Key ingredient to be harder to buy

INDIANAPOLIS -- The Indiana Senate voted unanimously yesterday to restrict
the sale of cold medicines and other over-the-counter drugs that contain a
key ingredient used to make methamphetamine.

Senate Bill 444 also requires pharmacies and other stores to take additional
precautions in stocking and selling drugs that contain ephedrine or
pseudoephedrine.

Dealers use those ingredients to manufacture meth, a highly addictive drug.

"Meth has become a major problem all over the state of Indiana," said the
bill's author, Sen. Mike Young, R-Indianapolis. "It's easy to make this
product that ruins people's lives."

The bill moves to the House, where a committee plans to consider an even
stricter measure today that would require cold and allergy medicines to be
kept behind a pharmacy counter.

The bills are based in part on an Oklahoma law that Young said substantially
reduced that state's meth problem almost immediately.

"It's not every day that you can pass a law that takes care of a problem
overnight," Young said.

Yesterday Sen. Jim Lewis, D-Charlestown, urged lawmakers to pass the Senate
bill after the death of Katlyn "Katie" Collman, a 10-year-old Crothersville
girl who police say was killed after she witnessed meth activity.

SB 444 is "just a small part of trying to bring under control the meth
problem we have all across the state," Lewis said.

The Senate bill restricts only the sale of cold and allergy tablets or pills
that contain pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, not the liquid, liquid capsule,
or gel versions of the medicines.

It prohibits stores from selling a customer more than one bottle of 100
pills or two boxes each with 48 pills contained in blister packs, Young
said. Self-service checkouts must be programmed to ring up just one package
of the medicines -- unless an employee assists with the sale.

The bill also requires secure storage, Young said. It provides store owners
with several options, though, to provide it.

They could display the drugs in a locked case, keep the drugs behind a
counter, or require a customer buying the medicine to produce a state or
federal identification card and record that information in a log.

The store could also adopt any two of the following security provisions:
Storing the medicine less than 30 feet away from a checkout in the direct
sightline of an employee; putting anti-theft devices on the boxes or bottles
that will set off alarms if they are stolen; using protective shelving that
allows a customer to remove only one box every 15 seconds; or keeping the
area under constant video monitoring.

Sen. Tim Skinner, D-Terre Haute, supported the legislation yesterday but
said it didn't go far enough. He prefers that products containing ephedrine
or pseudoephedrine be kept behind a pharmacy counter or in locked cases.

That's what the Vigo County commissioners did in Skinner's district. The
ordinance that went into effect last month also restricts the sale of cold
and allergy medicines to pharmacies.

SB 444 originally would have pre-empted the Vigo County ordinance by
prohibiting local governments from passing stricter rules. But as amended,
the bill only restricts ordinances passed after June 1.

Hoosier business groups support SB 444 but would object if local communities
could pass their own rules and make it harder for chain stores to establish
statewide policies, Young said.

Sen. John Waterman, R-Shelburn, praised SB 444 yesterday but said it won't
stop the problem, even though it is "a good step forward." The former
sheriff said meth dealers will pay kids to go from store to store buying
cold medicine. He said meth dealers can also buy cold medicine on the
Internet.

House Bill 1223, which allows the sale of over-the-counter drugs containing
ephedrine or pseudoephedrine only in stores with pharmacies, is scheduled
for debate at 1:30 p.m. today in the House Courts and Criminal Code
Committee. 
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