PANEL STUDIES BILL TO LIMIT SALE OF PSEUDOEPHEDRINE

JACKSON - State Attorney General Jim Hood said Wednesday that a bill
limiting the sale of certain cold medicines could be the most
effective weapon against narcotics that he has seen in his career.

The bill, introduced by Sen. Sidney Albritton, R-Picayune, would
require a pharmacist or assistant to handle drugs containing
pseudoephedrine, which is a primary ingredient in the manufacture of
the illegal drug crystal methamphetamine.

Senate Judiciary B Committee, chaired by Sen. Gray Tollison, D-Oxford,
met Wednesday for a hearing on the bill, which also would require
people to show photo identification when buying the non-prescription
drug.

Hood told the committee he would support a slightly less restrictive
bill that would allow stores to keep the medicines in locked cases and
would restrict pseudoephedrine only in tablet form.

"This is my number one bill," he said after the hearing at the
Capitol. "It will have the most impact of any bill I've seen in my 15
years of experience" fighting narcotics.

Pseudoephedrine is found in cold medicine such as Sudafed, and makers
of the drugs expressed concern that the bill would prevent people in
rural areas from getting medicine after pharmacies are closed.

Jennifer Hawks Bland, representating Consumer Healthcare Products
Association, said other measures could be just as effective, citing a
bill in Washington in which merely limiting the amount that could be
bought led to significant decreases in meth lab seizures.

After hearing about the hearing, Lt. Chuck Bunn, director of the North
Mississippi Narcotics Unit in Tupelo, said he agreed the bill could go
too far.

"Anything would help at this point," he said. "Restricting the amount
that could be purchased would definitely help, but I think requiring
it to be behind the counter would be burden on store owners."

The bill is modeled after an Oklahoma bill credited with an 80 percent
reduction in meth lab seizures, as reported by the Associated Press.

A similar bill introduced in the House establishes penalties for store
owners who knowingly sells the product to a crystal meth cook.

Former meth addict Mark Stovall of Clarksdale, who now works as a drug
treatment counselor, told the committee he had no doubts the bill would
work.

Paranoia - a side effect of crystal meth - will cause users to think
twice if the drugs are restricted, he said.

"If it's on the shelf, they're going to get it," he said. "If I had
had to walk up to that counter and ask for it, it would have made me
nervous. I wouldn't have done it."