Bluefield Daily Telegraph, Bluefield, WV

Local News

Discussion

October 18, 2011

W.Va. retailers: ‘Sudafed bill’ would burden businesses, hike health care costs

Mannix Porterfield Bluefield Daily Telegraph

CHARLESTON — Placing some 15 common cold and allergy medications on a prescription-only basis can only serve to jack up health care costs and impose a burden on the business community, says the West Virginia Retailers Association.

Besides, says the group’s president, Bridget Lambert, the federal Drug Enforcement Agency’s own Web site reflects a dramatic drop in illegal methamphetamine labs since West Virginia removed medications that contain the key ingredient, pseudoephedrine, from an over-the-counter status.

Seven years ago, the DEA reports, there were 171 meth incidents in this state, including labs, dumpsites and equipment.

That number zoomed to 216 one year later, then plunged to 86 in 2006, once the policy change became effective. There were 42 such incidents in 2007, 50 in 2008, 52 the following year, and 44 a year ago, the DEA site shows.

“We have reduced meth labs 75 percent,” Lambert said Monday.

A new movement is afoot to resurrect the so-called “Sudafed bill” in the 2012 session of the West Virginia Legislature, on grounds that it would keep pseudoephedrine products from falling into the wrong hands, that is, the criminals cooking up illegal meth. The first attempt last winter fizzled on a rare tie vote in the Senate.

Under the recent change, Lambert pointed out, a consumer must produce valid identification when asking for a product with pseudoephedrine and this information is recorded and logged at the point of sale in a pharmacy, then relayed to the state Board of Pharmacy.

“It can be reported once a week, or once a month, but they do report it on a regular basis,” Lambert said.

Police have access to this information, she said.

“Any time they wish to they can walk into a pharmacy and look at it and any time they wish to they can log in and look at the Board of Pharmacy Web site,” she said.

If such medications are dispensed only by prescriptions, Lambert said, the HIPPA rules protecting patients come into play, and there is about a seven-day lag via the West Virginia Controlled Substance Database.

“It is not a real-time reporting system, either,” she said.

In current practice, if a consumer seeks to make multiple purchases at different stores owned by a pharmacy chain, the druggist is alerted that he has exceeded his legal limit, she said.

“It won’t pop up if you go to different ones,” she said.

“It’s not in the best interests of a person to do that. Law enforcement has full, open access to those records at this moment. A month from now, if you purchased over your limit, they’re going to be able to see it. It will have been reported.”

Lambert emphasized her group, which represents more than 560 stores, including all chain pharmacies, independent drug stores and grocery outlets, isn’t advocating the implementation of an electronic monitoring system.

“What we’re saying is that West Virginia has effectively reduced their meth labs by 75 percent in the last five years,” she said.

“If you look at states surrounding Mississippi and Oregon (the lone states with prescription-only products), their numbers have gone up for pseudoephedrine. Oregon had 22 deaths from meth last year.”

Lambert raised another point — the infiltration of the Mexican drug cartel on the West Coast, plowing into a black market for pseudoephedrine.

“I’m sure it’s going to start coming up the East Coast,” she said.

“If you make this prescription-only, you’re going to create a need on the East Coast for black market pseudoephedrine products. We have a system in place where you walk into the pharmacy and there is a record. Law enforcement has access to it. Seventeen states have electronic monitoring programs that do allow real time reporting. If you go into five pharmacies (to buy pseudoephedrine), you’re going to pop up instantly when you hit your limit of pseudoephedrine that you can purchase.”

Sen. Dan Foster, D-Kanawha, a Charleston surgeon, is the chief backer of the prescription-only legislation, and one of his points is that only a doctor should decide which patients get pseudoephedrine products, since they can work negatively in those with heart problems, hypertension, and diabetes.

Lambert disagrees, saying physicians are “very careful” and have provided “excellent counseling” of their patients as to which medications are safe for them to ingest. Moreover, she said, pharmacists are also familiar with patients and the medicines they routinely take.

“There’s a two-step process where patients have the ability to be counseled against using products they shouldn’t,” Lambert said.

Lambert says the prescription-only status would also raise health care and business costs for consumers and employers alike.

“If an employee has to have lost time from work and get a doctor’s prescription for a cold remedy that does work fast, you’re adding an astronomical bill on the back of consumers and employers in the state of West Virginia, in a time when a lot of employers are just trying to keep health coverage,” she said.

Text Only
Local News