Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
Support the IDS in College Media Madness! Donate here March 24 - April 8.
Friday, March 29
The Indiana Daily Student

Proposed bill could allow pharmacists to legally deny customers cough medicine

Pharmacists may be legally allowed to prevent patients from purchasing cough medicine if the pharmacist suspects the patient may use the medicine to make methamphetamine, as outlined by a bill currently making its way through Indiana Congress.

The Senate Corrections and Criminal Law committee passed the measure, called Senate Bill 80, with an 8-2 vote Tuesday. The bill was written by Sen. Randall Head, R-Logansport, and Sen. James Merritt, R-Indianapolis. For the bill to take effect, it would need to pass through two more readings in the Senate and then go through the same process in the House, Merritt said.

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s website, Indiana had the most meth lab incidents of any state in 2014 — a total of 1,471 for the year out of 9,338 reported nationwide.

Both Head and Merritt said they conceived the idea because Arkansas reduced the amount of meth labs in its state by implementing a similar measure.

The idea would be for pharmacists to be skeptical with customers attempting to purchase the pseudoephedrine, which is used as an ingredient in making meth, so as to curb meth lab incidents in the state, Merritt said. Pharmacists could ask customers things such as what their symptoms were, if they’d taken the cold medicine before and what kind of medicine they wanted, 
he said.

Some have suggested taking it even a step further by requiring patients to obtain a prescription from a doctor in order to receive the cough medicine, but both Head and Merritt said they were against this idea and said SB80 was a more efficient way to combat the meth problem.

“It costs money to go to the doctor if you have a cold, and it’s also a use of time,” Merritt said. “This is a time saver, it’s less expensive and it’s just a simpler policy.”

While the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a trade association that represents over-the-counter drug manufacturers, agrees requiring a prescription for cough medicine is not the solution, they also don’t support SB80, either.

Mike Tringale, senior director of communications and public affairs at CHPA, attended the Senate committee meeting Tuesday. The bill won’t be effective and will only make life difficult for consumers, Tringale said. He said the bill is an unnecessary barrier and would practically negate the fact that cough medicine is an over-the-counter product by requiring consumers to jump through hoops to obtain it.

“Barriers are an unfair way to handle the meth problem,” Tringale said. “Go after the criminals, not the 
patients.”

CHPA does support, however, another bill making its way through Indiana Congress: Senate Bill 161 has also moved out of committee hearing and will be examined by the full Senate.

This bill would require “courts to report drug-related felonies to the state police department,” and require “the state police department to report drug-related felonies to the National Precursor Log Exchange,” according to the Indiana General Assembly website. NPLEx would then generate a “stop sale alert,” which would prevent individuals with drug-related felonies from purchasing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine.

This is a formula CHPA has seen work in the past, and Tringale said he hopes SB161 passes.

“The trick is we have to do something, but that doesn’t mean we should just do anything,” Tringale said. “For us, the right thing has to be evidence based, and the evidence is this formula.”

Tringale said while at the Statehouse on Tuesday, he heard concerns that SB80 would allow pharmacists to be held liable for distributing or not distributing the cough medicine to consumers.

However, Merritt insists the bill clearly states pharmacists shouldn’t fear being held liable.

In the bill description on the IGA’s website, it said the bill “allows a pharmacist to deny the sale of ephedrine or pseudoephedrine on the basis of the pharmacist’s professional judgment, and provides the pharmacist with civil immunity for making such a denial,” but it also said the bill “allows the Indiana board of pharmacy to ... discipline a pharmacist for a professional determination made concerning refusal to sell ephedrine or pseudoephedrine.”

Ultimately, Head said the meth problem in Indiana is one that cannot be ignored and he believes this measure is the best way to curb the use of meth in the state.

“This product is being used more here in Indiana than anywhere else, and we have to do something,” Head said.

Get stories like this in your inbox
Subscribe