PROPOSED LAW WOULD LOCK UP COLD MEDICINE

Paula Butterfield, a pharmacist and owner of Trivillian's Pharmacy, can no
longer keep medicines containing pseudoephedrine on her shelves.

She hasn't kept much of the drug in her Kanawha City store for the last six
months. Butterfield said so much of the over-the-counter drug was getting
stolen, it wasn't worth the hassle to try to sell it.

A veteran pharmacist and businesswoman, Butterfield thinks she knows who
was responsible for swiping the cold medicine -- people trying to make
methamphetamine. That's a phenomenon she has trouble comprehending.

"I wouldn't risk my integrity or my reputation on a bottle of cold
medicine," she said.

The pseudoephedrine she keeps in her pharmacy is behind glass, and
customers who want the medicine must ask the pharmacist if they can have it.

Other pharmacies throughout the area are being forced to take similar
measures to keep cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine out of the hands
of addicts and methamphetamine cooks.

If a law that will be proposed during this year's legislative session
passes, places that sell cold medicine would have to put the medicine
behind glass and take names of people who buy multiple boxes.

To make the meth, cooks attempt to isolate the drug's active ingredient and
then ingest the finished product.

In talking with fellow pharmacists from across the Kanawha Valley,
Butterfield has found that most are limiting access to the drug.

Although people buying cold medicine for legitimate reasons were only a
fraction of her business, she said it's "a shame that people who need cold
medicine can't go out and shop for it."

Greg Moles, a pharmacist at Bee Well Pharmacy in South Charleston, said
that store hasn't had the problems other pharmacies have experienced, but
employees there keep the drug behind the counter and people who want it
must see a pharmacist first.

He said they restricted the drug as a precautionary measure, but they have
dealt with "some suspicious-looking people" asking for certain types of
cold medicine.

The law, which is being sponsored by Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse,
R-Kanawha, would be modeled after a law passed in Oklahoma, which
classifies pseudoephedrine as a Schedule 5 narcotic.

Like any kind of cold or cough medicine with codeine, only a pharmacist
could dispense the drug if the law is passed.

Since the law took effect in Oklahoma last spring, drug lab raids have
fallen by 80 percent, according to the state's Bureau of Narcotics and
Dangerous Drugs.

Sprouse said he would work with police, retailers and pharmacists to
develop something that will work for West Virginia.

"We really need to attack the supply issue," Sprouse said. "We need to make
it so that you can't buy more than a few boxes at a time. No one needs five
boxes of Sudafed."

Sprouse said the challenge will be to find a way to balance the needs of a
person who wants to relieve a stuffed head and runny nose and someone who
wants the drug for illicit reasons.

He hopes the bill will make it easier to track people who buy the cold
medicine on a regular basis.

Police say they have arrested cooks who have drawn maps to all the places
they have been able to buy a few boxes of pseudoephedrine.

"If you go and buy a few boxes, that's not a reason to record a name,"
Sprouse said. "But if you buy three boxes, you should present an I.D. and
write your name down as if you were picking up a prescription drug."

Sprouse said he doesn't foresee much of a problem getting the bill to the
governor's desk.

"I think it's going to be a great piece a of legislation. I don't see any
opposition to it," he said.

Sgt. Steve Walker, a detective with the Metro Drug Unit and president of
the state's Fraternal Order of Police lodge, helped draft the bill and
thinks it could have an immediate effect on the number of labs authorities
bust.

"This will give us a better tool," he said.

Kanawha County Prosecutor Bill Charnock announced late last week that the
county's grand jury had handed down 26 indictments charging people with
operating meth labs. Twenty-six others were charged with drug crimes.

Charnock said he believed that was the largest number of drug charges
issued by a Kanawha County grand jury in one sitting.

"If you cook methamphetamine in Kanawha County, MDENT (the Metro Drug
Unit), is going to find you and my office is going to prosecute you,"
Charnock said during a press conference Friday.

Sprouse said he also would consult the West Virginia Prosecuting Attorneys
Institute to see what else could be done to help battle the meth trade and
production in the state.

Sprouse sponsored a bill two years ago that made it illegal to have the
ingredients needed to make meth.

He said the law has had some effect but not as much as he would have liked.
He plans to meet with someone from the prosecuting attorney's institute to
determine how the law could be tweaked.