BILL TO REDUCE METH USE OK'D

Plan Is To Put Medicines Behind The Counter That Are Used To Create Drug

COLUMBIA - A Senate subcommittee passed along a bill Thursday that
would put Sudafed and other cold medicines used to create the illegal
drug methamphetamine behind the counter.

The bill now heads to the full Senate Medical Affairs Committee.

It would require that people buying the medication present photo
identification and sign a log that includes their name, address and
how much of the product they purchased.

As approved by the House last month, the measure required pharmacies
to send those logs to the State Law Enforcement Division, to be put
into a central database for investigative purposes.

Some senators didn't like that idea. They thought that required too
much paperwork of pharmacists.

The bill's sponsor, Rep. Joan Brady, R-Columbia, successfully killed
an attempt in the House to delete the log requirement. A freshman
lawmaker and mother of three, she said she became passionate about
the measure after a high school student approached her with concerns
about increasing meth use.

But to get the bill out of the Senate subcommittee, she agreed to
change it to require pharmacies keep the logs in-house for two years.
Law enforcement could request the information from each location.

"We can live with this," said Sen. Ronnie Cromer, R-Prosperity, a pharmacist.

Senators also plan to put a five-year expiration date on the law.
Cromer said he believes the need to put such medicines behind the
counter will become moot by then as the pharmaceutical industry
creates medicines that can't be used to make meth.

Trey Walker, spokesman for Attorney General Henry McMaster, called
the log an essential law enforcement tool. He said creating a central
database would serve as a strong deterrent for meth producers. Meth
users become paranoid anyway, he said, and the thought that police
could see they've loaded up on cold medicine by pharmacy-hopping
would deter them from doing so.

A log that stays with the pharmacy, making it more difficult for law
enforcement to determine a pattern, is less of a deterrent, but at
least the legislation still includes a log, Walker said: "We've gone
from a Cadillac to a Yugo, but they both still drive."