The Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday unanimously approved a bill that would limit access to common cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, an ingredient that can be used to make the highly addictive drug methamphetamine.

The committee sent the bipartisan “Combat Meth Act of 2005” to the full Senate on a voice vote. A similar bill in the House of Representatives introduced by Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo has been referred to a subcommittee for consideration.

Flap had reported previously, Combat Methamphetamine Act: Senate Judiciary Committe to Hear Bill.

And the bill was stripped of language that would restrict the states from passing stricter measures to combat this scourage.

Drug makers and store chains had supported the bill in part because it would create a single, nationwide standard for cold medicine sales. But the bill’s chief sponsors, Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., said they ultimately had to side with states that wanted to be tougher than the federal law.

“I respect businesses that feel they haven’t done anything wrong,” Talent said at a Capitol Hill news conference. “But there’s no other choice if we’re going to stop meth cooks.”

Thanks and Kudos to the Senate Judiciary Committee for not watering down this bill.

Talent and Feinstein said they hoped the full Senate could pass their bill shortly after Labor Day, and they said administration officials had expressed support. But the bill still could face stiff opposition from industry at any point in the process.

Mary Ann Wagner, a regulatory expert with the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, said her group had not yet taken a position on the revised bill but said that members were “initially very disappointed.”

Meanwhile, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which represents manufacturers, definitely will oppose the amended bill, said Elizabeth Assey, a spokeswoman.

“We favor placing these products behind the counter,” she said. “We think that that is a better solution than requiring a doctor’s visit and a prescription for consumers who genuinely need these medicines.”

But Feinstein said she thought momentum was on her side. Rather than fight new restrictions on cold products containing pseudoephedrine, drug makers more likely would begin using substitutes that cannot be converted to meth.

Pfizer already has introduced Sudafed PE, which uses phenylephrine instead of pseudoephedrine. Phenylephrine cannot be converted to meth in home labs. Some retail chains also have asked manufacturers of their generic cold medicines to switch to phenylephrine.

“It’s a clear signal to the pharmaceutical industry to begin producing cold medicines without the precursor chemicals that can be easily removed from these pills and made into methamphetamine,” Feinstein said.

“I think the time has really come for the industry to listen and understand that there is a big problem out there from these cold medicines.”

Indeed and we will be watching the drug manufacturers for any lobbying attempt to change this Act. This could have been stopped a number of years ago if they had cooperated.

So, Flap asks them to take a look at the graphics above and below and ask themselves why they cannot supply cold medicines that do not lead to production of methamphetamine?

More later on bills in the House to combat international methamphetamine.

Under pressure from state governments and local law enforcement agencies, the pharmaceutical industry is changing the chemical formulation of cold and allergy OTC medicines to prevent their ingredients being converted into Methamphetamine.

“This is the direction we’re moving,” said Elizabeth Assey, spokeswoman for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association in Washington, D.C., a lobbying organization for the cold medicine industry.

Pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient in a number of over-the-counter drugs such as Sudafed and Sinutab, can be extracted by boiling down cold medicines. Toxic chemicals are then used to turn the substance into meth.

More than a dozen states already have restricted access, either by allowing only pharmacies to sell drugs with pseudoephedrine or making retailers sell them from staffed counters. A May report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy found a 50 percent drop in the number of meth labs in Oklahoma and Oregon, two of the first states to enact such restrictions.

But law enforcement officials and others believe that reformulating the drugs can reduce the problem even more, by helping shut down the small labs operating nationwide.

Pfizer Inc., the manufacturer of Sudafed and other leading pseudoephedrine products, plans by January to reformulate up to half of them with phenylephrine.

Leiner Health Products, which supplies generic cold and allergy drugs to retail chains such as Costco, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart, began shipping new products containing phenylephrine in June.

McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, also is considering reformulation of a variety of its products, along with other major manufacturers, including Wyeth and Schering-Plough.

And the world’s largest producer of phenylephrine — Boehringer-Ingelheim of Germany — says it can boost production capacity for the substitute ingredient by enough so the entire U.S. supply of pseudoephedrine could be replaced by 2006.

However, the t pharmaceutical companies are moving cautiously to make sure substitutes are effective, and to await proposed federal legislation – Combat Meth Act – that could affect how they reformulate some of their products, said Assey, of the Consumer Healthcare Products Association.

“It’s the first step in a long process, from an industry standpoint,” she said.

Phenylephrine differs from pseudoephedrine by a single pair of oxygen and hydrogen atoms, a tiny but important difference that makes it virtually impossible to transform phenylephrine into methamphetamine.

“Structurally, when just looking at the chemistry, they are very, very similar,” said Kate Farthing, an Oregon Health & Science University pharmacist.

But if cooks at illegal labs try to convert phenylephrine into methamphetamine, they get only a useless variation, Farthing said.

Pseudoephedrine

Vs. Phenylephrine

Flap looks for the drug companies to drag their feet while exerting their lobbying muscle on the federal Combat Meth Act.

However, the states like Iowa and local law enforcement agencies who have been dramatically impacted by this Meth scourage will keep the pressure on the Congress.

A change in formulation would end the spread of the MOM and POP labs.

Now, what will the Congress do about the importation of Methamphetamine from Mexico?

The Combat Methamphetamine Act of 2005 (Senate Bill 103) will be heard today in the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Bill is sponsored by U.S. Senators Jim Talent (R-Mo.) and Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and would:

* Moves cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter – amends the Controlled Substances Act to appropriately limit the sale of medicines containing pseudoephedrine by placing them behind the counter and sets a limit on how much of such medicines one person can buy in a month – 7.5 grams.

* Requires signature and identification for purchases – The Attorney General will develop regulations to ensure uniformity.

* Creates alternate procedures for stores without pharmacies and stores in rural areas – The Drug Enforcement Administration and States will develop regulations to continue to allow cold medicine to be sold at retail stores without pharmacies and in rural areas (but which meet appropriate security criteria), consistent with the intent of the bill to limit access to pseudoephedrine.

* Creates an airport exemption – Allows retail facilities located within a commercial airport to sell cold medicine with pseudoephedrine (in liquid form or gel caps) in single packages containing no more than 360 milligrams in a 24-hour period and requires them to follow the log book procedures established by the bill.

* Sets a national standard, but allows states to determine appropriate penalties.

* Effective Date – Cold medicines containing only pseudoephedrine must be moved behind the counter within 90 days of enactment. Those medicines with pseudoephedrine and other ingredients must be moved by January 1, 2007.

* Creates a national Meth treatment center – to research effective treatments for Meth abuse.

* Authorizes $43 million for enforcement, training, and research into treatment. This includes:

o $25,000,000 for local law enforcement and federal prosecutors to bring meth manufacturers and dealers to justice
o $13,000,000 for meth treatment and research
o $5,000,000 to help children who have been affected by meth

Feinstein first introduced anti-meth legislation a decade ago, aimed at cracking down on mass sales of the precursor drugs used in meth. In 1999, Congress passed legislation limiting sales of medication, but it had an exemption for medication sold in blister packs, which today means just about all the drugs. The sponsors say that has created the need for the current bill.

The Bill is supported by the makers of Sudafed, Pfizer Inc. and by the following:

Association of State Criminal Investigative Agencies
California Attorney General Bill Lockyer
Fertilizer Institute
Food Marketing Institute
Healthcare Distribution Management Association
Missouri Governor Matt Blunt
Missouri Highway Patrol
National Association of Chain Drug Stores
Safeway
Wal-Mart

Flap urges quick adoption of the ACT.

Kudos to Senator Feinstein for her diligent efforts to curb Methamphetamine.

Contact her office and let her know that you support S. 103, the Combat Meth Act of 2005.

Update #1

However, the Iowa Governor’s office is concerned that this bill may be too weak:

A proposed federal anti-methamphetamine bill is weaker than legislation passed in states like Iowa, which it would supersede, the Des Moines Register reported June 8.

The Combat Meth Act would require drugs containing pseudoephedrine to be sold behind pharmacy counters. But state leaders worry that Congress will bend to lobbying pressure by the pharmaceutical industry and weaken the federal legislation, which would override stronger laws passed at the state level.

Iowa, for example, has the strongest anti-meth law in the country and bans over-the-counter sales of liquid and starch-based pediatric medicines containing pseudoephedrine, which the federal law would allow. “Our legislation ought to be the national model,” said Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. “Anything less than what Iowa is doing can minimize the security that can come from this bill.”

The original Combat Meth Act authored by Sens. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) would not have superseded state law. But the bill has since been amended so that it does. A spokesperson for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said that she has been “working with the industry and Republicans to try to get a bill that everyone can support … The pharmaceutical industry would fight strongly anything that wasn’t a national standard.”

“I am concerned,” said Marvin Van Haaften, head of the Iowa Governor’s Office of Drug Control Policy. “We spent over two years debating, studying, discussing and wisely constructing the (state) bill that would become our final product. Now, the federal measure is in a state of flux, and we could easily wind up with a bill that is considerably weaker than ours.”

Stay tuned, the lobbying Wars in Washington have just begun.

Methamphetamine Lab Seizures are falling in Tennessee:

Methamphetamine lab seizures in Tennessee are down 39 percent from a year ago, with state officials attributing that to a new law designed to make it harder to make the illicit drug.

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, there were 82 lab seizures in May compared to 134 during the same period last year. May was the first full month in which the Meth-Free Tennessee Act was in effect.

Gov. Phil Bredesen signed the legislation into law in March. The law stiffens the penalties for making meth and requires pharmacies to move cold and sinus products containing pseudoephedrine, behind the counter.

Pseudoephedrine, a decongestant, is an ingredient used to make the drug. Methamphetamine is an addictive stimulant often called speed, crystal, ice or crank. The drug can be taken orally, injected, snorted or smoked.

The law was the product of recommendations made by the Governor’s Task Force on Methamphetamine Abuse.

Good News about Winning the War on Methamphetamine.

Read about the success in Portland, Oregon here.

The Oregon State Legislature and the Oregon board of Pharmacy have joined together to restrict the many precursor chemicals used to manufacture methamphetamine.

Their goals: Slash local meth production, and ease growing pressure on resources in the fields of law enforcement, treatment and prevention.
And it worked: The amount of meth on the streets went down.
This year, right? Try 1987.
The Legislature and the Board of Pharmacy effort 18 years ago helped cops and prosecutors almost totally eradicate the then-prevalent form of meth, called “p2p” for the recipe’s reliance on a chemical called phenyl-2-propanone. But when they attacked the chemicals they did, they ignored another recipe available today in many an illegal neighborhood drug market.
The primary strategy in Salem and Portland this year is the same: Limit the availability of the chemicals used to make the dominant form of meth.

The difference this time, they say, is that no heir-apparent recipe exists.

Now the DEA and the Department of Justice need to further restrict the off-shore importation of the precursor chemicals from Eastern Europe, China and India. A map of importation routes can be viewed here.

And restrict the importation of these precursors to Mexico, where over half of all American methamphetamine is imported.

In September 1987, a year after the Portland Police Bureau reconstituted its Drugs & Vice Division and discovered huge caches of meth in houses, cars, motel rooms and storage units, the Board of Pharmacy voted to add four meth-making chemicals to its list of controlled substances.
Two of the four, ephedrine and phenylacetic acid, were the largest precursor chemicals. The first widens air passages in the lungs and appears in bronchial medicines. The second is a common ingredient in perfume.
The board also agreed to review two chemicals in addition to the four and later added them to the list. The same month, a bill passed by the Legislature took effect, requiring buyers and sellers of 17 chemicals to report all such transactions to the Oregon State Police.
Meth production dropped. Cooks started driving north to Washington for chemicals, sometimes moving there and commuting to sell their product.
But lurking in the background was another recipe that had already hit Portland’s streets. None of the legislation, none of the rule changes had addressed it, and it flourished. The primary ingredient, pseudoephedrine, a decongestant, was available in cold tablets bottled and packaged by the thousands.
Still, then-U.S. Rep. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., stood on the floor of the House of Representatives in June 1991 entreating his colleagues to target only ephedrine. Wyden, now a senator, did not respond to a request to discuss methamphetamine.

Politicans like Wyden should be embarassed that their lack of foresight has cost many citizens their lives and many millions of dollars in criminal and treatment costs.

However, today the problem is well understood and Oregon is again seeing improvement with precursor chemical restrictions.

Methamphetamine production and use decreases when precursor chemicals are restricted.

There is congressional work to be done on a bi-partsian basis to eliminate this drug’s manufacture, importation and use.

By 2004, the problem was much more clear — and growing. Portland police busted 53 meth labs in 2003. Last year, 116. Recipes were readily available online at pages like Totse.com and Neonjoint.com.
Meth’s evolving prominence in local law-enforcement dialogues coincided with a budget squeeze reducing the number of jail beds along with the number of deputy district attorneys assigned to drug cases, from 12 to seven.
“We’re just overwhelmed,” said Mark McDonnell, Multnomah County senior deputy district attorney. “We’re dying, or maybe drowning is the best word for it.”
Hoping to address such issues, Kulongoski formed his task force, and the Legislature and Board of Pharmacy again took up the issue. Pseudoephedrine moved behind pharmacy counters, accessible only with identification and, later, a signature. Pharmaceutical companies changed some of their cold-tablet recipes to exclude pseudoephedrine.
A meth congress in Portland last week attended by 23 elected officials, judges, lawyers, cops, health professionals and educators set priorities of immediate funding for jail beds and treatment. And two bills received public hearings in Salem on Thursday — a House bill stiffening punishments for meth cooks and a Senate bill expanding the definition of child abuse to include living with meth labs.

Again, as in 1987, methamphetamine production in Portland is down.