INDIANAPOLIS —
Changing the status of cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine to prescription-only status is the only way to eliminate the mom-and-pop meth lab epidemic in Indiana, some Vigo County officials contend.
That message was taken to the Statehouse on Wednesday by Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marvel, accompanied by Prosecutor Terry Modesitt, Superior Court 5 Judge Michael Rader and others.
“We, as a contingent, agree that the only way we see to eliminate the problem entirely is to make it a prescription-only drug,” Marvel said of pseudoephedrine during a news conference at the Statehouse in Indianapolis with Modesitt, Rader and Chief Deputy Prosecutor Rob Roberts.
Marvel had testified only minutes earlier to a legislative study committee, which heard several experts speak in favor of prescription-only status, as well as some supporting electronic tracking of PSE product sales.
“Tracking does nothing to prevent meth from being made,” Marvel told the committee, which included Reps. Linda Lawson, Vernon Smith, Bruce Borders and Sen. Carlin Yoder, along with Sen. Tim Skinner (D-Terre Haute).
“Like I told the committee, I’m the guy who came over here 7 years ago and said that we need to track this and make them show a valid ID, but it didn’t work,” Marvel said of electronic tracking and its effect on the clandestine manufacturing of meth. Vigo County did adopt its own ordinance limiting the quantity of PSE products that a person could purchase, but that was later superceded by a state law when the meth problem grew.
“It doesn’t prevent the abuse,” Marvel said. “The only way to prevent the abuse is to make it a scheduled drug.”
Marvel pointed out that Oregon has had great success with its prescription-only purchase law for PSE, and Mississippi has recently gone prescription-only as well.
The people who are most critical of the prescription-only effort, Marvel said, are representatives of the drug industry.
“We have already heard them say they will pay a half-million dollars to get the e-tracking on board,” he said. “Of course they will pay a half-million because they are making billions on it.”
“Unfortunately,” Modesitt added of the drug industry, “they are biased because it’s all about money.”
Rader, who oversees Vigo County’s Drug Court, said the issue has nothing to do with partisanship, but everything to do with the health of the community.
“The problem is that the drug labs are the issue because of the effect on children and the environment,” Rader said. “I think that if we make it harder to get access to the drug, it will have a big impact on our court system and the jails.”
Rader, who is also a medical doctor, said opponents of the legislation will talk a lot about allergy sufferers and people who will be denied access to medication. But there are a lot of other ways to treat allergies than with PSE, he said, and most people who need the drugs can get it through their doctor.
During testimony, the committee heard that prescription drug abuse is a bigger problem in Indiana than methamphetamine use.
Rader agreed, but said that making PSE products prescription-only is not shifting the problem from one crime status to another.
“You can educate the prescription writers who issue the prescriptions,” Rader said, noting that there is training available to educate physicians and other caregivers about cutting off the prescription abusers.
“Part of the problem is that we have physicians who will write these prescriptions by the hundreds,” Rader said of questionable prescriptions for Oxycontin, hydrocodone, Xanax and other commonly abused medications. “There’s no justification for this, but it can be stopped.”
However, Modesitt said he does not agree that prescription drug abuse is a bigger problem.
“If you just check the jails,” he said, “more people are in jail for meth.”
And Marvel pointed out that Oxycontin abuse does not affect the general public the way methamphetamine production and abuse does. A meth lab pollutes the environment with its nasty chemical reactions, poisoning households that often contain children and affecting everyone in a dwelling. The remnants of meth labs are often tossed carelessly along roadsides and left where they will contaminate the environment.
Roberts noted that e-tracking will also not stop smurfing purchases of the drug. People who stay under the legal threshhold for purchases are not violating the law, but they can still be supplying meth cookers with PSE. If the purchase of PSE products without a prescription can be criminalized, Roberts said, then those people are subject to arrest.
Lisa Trigg can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or lisa.trigg@tribstar.com.
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Vigo Officials push state for PSE status change
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