Forty-three meth labs were seized in Monroe County in 2014. That same year, there were 1,416 lab seizures in Indiana as a whole, according to the Indiana Methamphetamine Investigation System.
For years now, the state has been one of the worst in the country for meth. Once again, state lawmakers are trying to change that.
Last week, the House’s public health committee passed two bills related to the drug, which were then presented to the full House on Monday.
House Bill 1157 would make it so that anyone convicted of a drug-related felony would not be allowed to purchase ephedrine or pseudoephedrine, two medications used in the production of meth.
“We have meth labs popping up around the state and, unfortunately, Indiana has become one of the worst states for the problem,” the bill’s author, Rep. David Frizzell, R-Indianapolis, said. “What we’re trying to do is just go after the bad guys and not penalize people who have been following the law.”
Frizzell said there are 42,000 convicted drug felons in the state who would be affected by the law, which would require a stop sale alert to be generated whenever one of those felons tried to purchase the drug.
House Bill 1390 would lower the amount of drugs containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine one can purchase without a doctor’s prescription.
The bill provides that if someone is known by the pharmacy — they regularly get their prescriptions filled there — the pharmacist would be permitted to give them pseudoephedrine, said the bill’s author, Rep. Ben Smaltz, R-Auburn.
If the pharmacist is unfamiliar with the customer, however, they would offer the customer an alternative brand of medication that still fights sickness but cannot be used to make meth.
If the customer refuses that brand of medicine, they can still get a small quantity of normal pseudoephederine.
If they want a larger amount, then they would need a prescription to obtain the medicine.
“We really took into consideration the convenience of the good guy and the inconvenience for the bad guy,” Smaltz said. “And we really leaned toward the convenience for the good guy. Only as a very last resort would someone need a prescription.”
Rep. Cindy Kirchhofer, R-Indianapolis, said she worries that even this may be a bit extreme.
“I haven’t had a prescription in quite some time,” Kirchhofer said. “So if I go to the pharmacy and I want pseudoephedrine, I don’t think it would be fair to law-abiding citizens to restrict that.”
Kirchhofer, who is chairman of the public health committee, said she thinks HB 1157 is likely to get through the House.
She said she thinks HB 1390, however, will be tougher.
“It’s having an impact on the health of our state, not to mention the cost for the law enforcement to track these folks and shut down meth labs,” Kirchhofer said. “It’s dangerous to the children in these homes where it’s being made, it’s dangerous for the people who are purchasing it. It might not deserve a prescription requirement, but it definitely deserves a discussion.”
