A bill was introduced in the House of Representatives that would limit the sale of pseudoephedrine, an ingredient commonly found in over-the-counter cold medicines such as Sudafed and Claratin.
The sale of pseudoephedrine is not being limited because of its use in cold medicines, but because "meth cooks" can use it to make methamphetamine, an illegal drug that can cause a number of respiratory and cardiovascular problems and even death.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) introduced the bill, the Combat Meth Act, on Jan. 31 to limit the sale of pseudoephedrine to nine grams per customer per month, said Laurent Henshaw, a Blunt spokeswoman.
"Access to common cold medicine can be a meth cook's dream come true," Blunt said in a press release. "The most effective way to fight the meth epidemic is to make it harder for criminals to get the key ingredient in the production of this deadly drug."
The act would require pharmacies to keep products containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter, saying: "Any person purchasing, receiving or otherwise acquiring any such substance shall produce a photo identification showing the date of birth of such person and sign a written log or receipt showing the date of the transaction, the name of the person, and the name and the amount of the substance purchased, received or otherwise acquired."
"Pharmacists would be charged with its distribution, and it would be monitored like other prescription drugs," said Henshaw.
Some pharmacists aren't happy with the proposed legislation.
"You can't limit this to people. We sell at least 20 to 30 bottles a day [of medicines with psuedoephedrine]," said Nader Henry, pharmacist-in-charge at the Tenleytown CVS. "Eighty percent of the cold and flu medicines we sell contain this ingredient. To put them all behind the counter is ridiculous. It would stop a big line of production."
He also said that people buying large quantities of psuedoephedrine-containing medicine are not a problem at his CVS. "The only time anyone ever bought a large quantity of Sudafed or any of those other medicines, they were sending them over to soldiers in Iraq that needed them."
The nine-gram limit does not apply to those products procured through prescription, according to the language of the bill. Prescription medicines with pseudoephredine include Decontel and Entex PSE, Henry said.
Meth cooks manufacture methamphetamine by extracting ephedrine from pseudoephedrine.
"They soak [the psuedoephedrine], and the ephedrine gets caught on the bottom or it can be siphoned through a cheesecloth," said Bill Grant, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration. It can be soaked in something as simple as water, he added.
The effects of methamphetamine include problems ranging from respiratory problems, irregular heartbeats and extreme anorexia to cardiovascular collapse and death. The drug also damages brain cells that contain dopamine and serotonin, chemicals that control emotions. A methamphetamine user ingests the drug by swallowing, snorting, inhaling or injecting it.
Chronic use can cause violent behavior, anxiety, confusion, insomnia, auditory hallucinations, mood disturbances, delusions and paranoia, according to a report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy. Withdrawal symptoms include depression, anxiety, fatigue, paranoia, aggression and intense cravings.
The 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health found that 12.4 million Americans over the age of 12 (5.3 percent of the population) had tried meth at least once.
Sens. Jim Talent (R-Mo.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) introduced companion legislation in the Senate on Feb. 1. Similar legislation has already been introduced in various states, including Missouri, Blunt's home state, which has more meth laboratories than anywhere else in the country, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse.
