Drug companies urge no prescription for cold meds

FRANKFORT, Ky. - Drug companies that produce cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine — a main ingredient in methamphetamine — don't want Kentucky to require a prescription for the drugs.

A representative of companies that produce cold medicines suggested to the Interim Joint Committee on the Judiciary on Friday that lawmakers consider an alternative.

Carlos Gutierrez, with the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, said those convicted of meth crimes could be placed on a registry of people banned from buying the drugs, according to the Lexington Herald-Leader. He argued that the registry and an education campaign about the dangers of meth, which his group is willing to help fund, have been effective in other states.

Gutierrez also said his organization would be willing to decrease the amount of pseudoephedrine a person can buy from the current limit of 108 grams a year to 60 grams.

But Dan Smoot, who leads a drug task force in southeastern Kentucky, said a registry would not work.

"Most meth cooks don't buy the cold medicine," he said. "This isn't going to do anything. It's useless."

Meth producers often pay other people to buy the cold medicine for them then mix the pills with other ingredients, including drain cleaner, to create a chemical reaction that converts the pseudoephedrine to meth.

A proposal to require a prescription for cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine was hotly debated during 2011 legislative session but never passed.

Many of the state's law enforcement agencies supported the bill, as did House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Senate President David Williams. Police say there have been dramatic declines in the number of meth labs in Oregon and Mississippi since those states passed a prescription law.

But drug companies have lobbied heavily against the change.

On Friday, Gutierrez said that cold and allergy sufferers don't want to visit a doctor to get a prescription for something they can now get at a drug store.

Kentucky is on track to have an all-time high number of meth-lab cases this year, according to state police. There had been 809 cases recorded by the end of August — 20 percent more than in the same period in 2010.

Smoot said meth labs are monopolizing the time and attention of his task force.

"We're doing nothing but cleaning up meth labs," he told the committee. "I need pseudoephedrine to be scheduled."