STATE LOOKS TO LIMIT OVER-THE-COUNTER DRUGS

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -Pharmacist Greg Mitchell is used to people coming in
to his pharmacy and asking for boxes of Sudafed. They don't care about
dosages or side effects, and they show no signs of a cold.

Mitchell thinks they are either helping drug dealers or dealing drugs
themselves because the decongestant is a key ingredient in making the
highly addictive and illegal stimulant methamphetamine.

"They just want to buy the stuff in quantities and go," says Mitchell, who
now refuses to sell more than one package at a time from his pharmacy.

Responding to similar scenarios around the state, Missouri lawmakers are
proposing some of the country's toughest restrictions on the sale of
over-the-counter medicines such as Sudafed. The plan is being hailed in
some circles, but business leaders say it goes too far.

Pseudoephedrine, the sole active ingredient in decongestants, can be used
in making methamphetamine, a brain-damaging drug that is considered a major
problem in parts of the Midwest, Southwest and West. Relatively inexpensive
and easy to obtain, meth produces a euphoria similar to cocaine.

Missouri and five other states already limit customers to three packages of
over-the-counter medicines like Sudafed. But Missouri police seized a
nation-high 2,725 clandestine meth labs last year, nearly one out of every
five labs found nationwide, and officials say they have to consider more
severe steps.

The Missouri legislation, which has passed the House, would require
medicines to be placed either behind the counter or within 6 feet of a
cashier, or to contain an electronic anti-theft tag. It also would limit
each customer to two packages of pseudoephedrine medicines.

Such restrictions would be the toughest in the nation, according to the
Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which represents manufacturers
and distributors of over-the-counter medicines.

"This proposal just goes a little too far," said Mike Sargent, a lobbyist
for the association. "It really unfairly targets the chronic allergy
sufferer, because that's the consumer who uses this product most often."