ANTI-METH BILL TARGETS TABLETS

A bill awaiting Gov. Jim Doyle's signature could make buying your favorite
cold medicine a little more difficult the next time you suffer from the
sniffles.

The state Senate and Assembly this month approved the bill, which would
prohibit retailers from selling cold- and allergy-fighting tablets
containing pseudoephedrine over the counter. Lawmakers' aim is to restrict
methamphetamine production by limiting meth makers' access to
pseudoephedrine, one of the drug's active ingredients.

This Wisconsin Grocers Association lobbied against the legislation, arguing
that putting all tablet sales in pharmacists' hands would hurt grocers'
sales and restrict consumers' access to medication.

Pierce's Supermarkets president Jeff Maurer said tablets already have been
pulled from shelves at the company's new grocery on Baraboo's east side. He
plans to do the same at the west-side Pick 'N' Save store, as Doyle is
expected to sign the bill. "We're already preparing ourselves," he said.

Under the bill, only pharmacists would be allowed to sell tablets
containing pseudoephedrine, and such products would have to be kept behind
the counter. (Gel caps and syrups are exempt.) Consumers would be required
to show identification and sign a log authorities would use to track down
suspected meth makers. "It's definitely going to impact our sales," Maurer
said.

Manufacturers are likely to take a hit, too, and observers expect them to
react to a swell of anti-meth legislation - other states such as Iowa and
Minnesota already enforce rules even more restrictive than those under
consideration here - by replacing tablets with new products, probably gel
caps. "I think the manufacturers are going to experience a sales decline,
as well," Maurer said. "I think they will work hard to replace that loss in
sales."

Paul Fritsch, co-owner of Corner Drug Store in Baraboo, predicted Sudafed
will launch a gel cap product shortly to replace the targeted tablets.
"It's going to be right back at the grocer's shelf, anyway," Fritsch said.
"In the long term, it'll smooth itself out again."

Tom Christianson, pharmacist at Rhyme Drug in Portage, said the legislation
wouldn't hamper consumers' access to medicine. It just means they may have
to choose between finding tablets in a difference place - a pharmacy
instead a grocery aisle - and using a medicine that doesn't contain
pseudoephedrine, of which there are plenty. "It's going to affect the sales
of those (tablet) products more than the people who buy them, because there
are so many alternatives," Christianson said. "People are going to have to
try a product they haven't tried before."

The bill, which passed 33-0 in the Senate and 92-6 in the Assembly earlier
this month, limits consumers to purchasing five boxes of caplets per month.
Meth makers need hundreds of pills to cook an ounce of the highly addictive
drug.

Meth has proved troublesome for Wisconsin law enforcement because it can
easily be made in home laboratories with inexpensive ingredients, including
crushed tablets containing pseudoephedrine. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
reported that meth cases reported in Wisconsin nearly quadrupled from 83 in
1999 to 314 in 2003, and involuntary placements for treatment for meth use
reached 347 in 2003, up from 194 in 2001.