METH LAW PUTS 7-ELEVEN OUT OF COLD BUSINESS

The 7-Eleven stores in Washington have decided to stop selling cold
and allergy medicines that can be used to make methamphetamine,
rather than keep a record of every sale.

Robin Pavlish, market manager for 7-Eleven Inc., said the new
requirements adopted last week by the state Board of Pharmacy are too
much of a burden for the chain's 225 stores in Washington.

Beginning Jan. 1, retailers must track sales of Sudafed, Actifed,
Drixoral, Claritin-D and other medicines that contain ephedrine,
pseudoephedrine or phenylpropanolamine. Those ingredients can be used
to make meth, a highly addictive drug that can produce violent
behavior in its users and can become toxic over time.

"Unfortunately, the red tape and regulations that go along with
selling these products make it an onerous burden on our franchisees,
all small-business people," Pavlish wrote in a letter that was sent
to the Washington Retail Association and forwarded to the pharmacy
board. "We felt that requiring a sales associate to log customers'
names in a book was a liability we did not want to incur.

"We feel this unfair burden will impact 99 percent of customers who
buy this product legitimately," he added. "Thus, we will lose
customers as a result."

Oct. 1 was the deadline for retailers to remove all products
containing those ingredients from their shelves, although most
retailers already had done so. Those products now are sold only
through customer service counters.

Next year, retailers also will have to keep a record of every sale,
recording the buyer's name, date of birth, address, signature, date
of purchase, form of identification produced, number of packages and
number of tablets per package. Those records must be kept for two
years and made available to any law enforcement agency that requests
them, as well as the pharmacy board.

Buyers also must be at least 18 years old and can buy no more than
two packages of the cold medicine in a single transaction. Buyers
also must show picture ID -- a driver's license, a passport, an armed
forces ID or a liquor board ID.

The Legislature added the requirements earlier this year in the hope
that rigid record-keeping will discourage the manufacture of meth.

"We're totally committed to implementation of the law and we do
believe it will reduce the number of meth labs in the neighborhoods,"
said Clif Finch, spokesman for the Washington Food Industry, whose
members include QFC, Safeway, Haggen grocery store chains as well as
many smaller stores. "But we're not happy with the final result. It
increases the hassle factor for consumers."

Finch said retailers estimate it will take three to four minutes to
record each transaction, and one of the chains estimates it will have
10,000 such transactions every month.

Retailers can appeal the new log requirement to the state Department
of Health, the Joint Administrative Rules Committee or go to court.
"And we're looking at all those options," Finch said.

The statewide pilot project is to be evaluated by a group of law
enforcement agencies, the pharmacy board and retailers to determine
the effectiveness of the record-keeping.

A report must be made to the Legislature by November 2007.

Finch said he was disappointed the pharmacy board didn't conduct a
cost-benefit analysis of the new recording requirement. If it had, it
would have learned that the record-keeping could add $1 to the cost
of cold remedies and allergy medicines, he said.

Steven Saxe, the board's executive director, said cameras can be used
to supplement the retailers' logs, but are not a requirement.