COLD MEDICINE BILL CLEARS HOUSE PANEL

INDIANAPOLIS -- A bill that would force Hoosiers to buy most cold and
allergy medicines at pharmacy counters instead of off the shelf passed a
House committee yesterday.

House Bill 1223 aims to keep pseudoephedrine -- a decongestant in Sudafed
and other over-the-counter medications -- out of the hands of those who use
it to make methamphetamine.

The bill also requires customers to sign a log to purchase the pills,
although it does not restrict how much they may buy.

The Courts and Criminal Code Committee approved the bill unanimously, and
it now moves to the full House for consideration.

"Meth is not a local problem. It's everywhere," said Rep. Ralph Foley,
R-Martinsville. "It's disgusting. It's a destroyer. It's a horrible thing."

The bill also lets judges make drug treatment a condition of a defendant's
release from jail after a meth arrest, requires law enforcement to
quarantine the location of a meth lab while it is cleaned up and
establishes a method by which local officials report to the state the labs
they've raided.

The Indiana Retail Council, which represents grocery, drug, discount and
convenience stores, opposes the bill. The group's president, Grant Monahan,
said yesterday that it's too strict.

"It will take every convenience store in the state of Indiana out of the
cold medicine business," Monahan said. "Eighty percent of grocery stores
don't have pharmacies."

Rep. Greg Porter, D-Indianapolis, voted for the bill yesterday but said
he'd like lawmakers to consider less restrictive language.

He said technology -- particularly the scanners and computers that stores
use at checkouts -- can easily track who buys cold medicine and how much.
It could be used to effectively control purchases, he said.

The Senate already has passed a more lenient bill, in part to meet the
concerns of retailers.

Senate Bill 444, which now moves to the House for consideration, would
restrict cold medicine sales to no more than two packages of 48 tablets
each or one bottle of 100 pills. It also requires that stores provide some
security measures regarding the medicines but does not require that they be
kept behind a pharmacy counter.

Both bills exempt liquid or gel forms of the cold medicines because it is
harder for meth dealers to extract the pseudoephedrine.

Yesterday Rep. Trent Van Haaften, D-Mount Vernon, said he hopes that
whatever compromise lawmakers find "is meaningful and puts Indiana at the
forefront of this fight."

Van Haaften served on the Indiana Methamphetamine Abuse Task Force, which
recommended that only pharmacists be allowed to sell the medicines and that
they be kept behind a counter. That provision is based on the experiences
of other states, including Oklahoma, which are also fighting serious
problems with meth.

In a series of stories in December, The Courier-Journal found that meth
production and addiction is spreading quickly across Kentucky and Indiana,
filling the states' jails, destroying families and increasing costs for
local law enforcement.

Indiana officials have estimated that meth costs the state at least $100
million a year, including the expense of dismantling labs, handling
children removed from addicted parents and incarcerating addicts and meth
makers.

Last year police discovered at least 1,500 meth labs in Indiana. But Van
Haaften said that number likely underreports the problem because it
includes only those labs that the Indiana State Police either raided or
cleaned up.

HB 1223 requires that all law enforcement agencies report meth labs and
notify local health and fire departments immediately after they have raided
a lab because the chemicals used in meth production are toxic.

It also requires police to notify the Division of Family and Children when
children are found at the labs.