Blunt signs bill targeting meth, granting nurses new powers

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Gov. Matt Blunt signed legislation Tuesday that lets certain nurses write prescriptions and requires pharmacies to keep electronic logs of purchases of cold medications used to make methamphetamine.

Missouri pharmacists have kept a paper record each time someone buys cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine since a 2005 law limited purchases of the medicine.

Blunt, in a written statement, called the electronic tracking an important new tool for law enforcement to attack meth. The Republican governor signed the bill Tuesday at the Joplin Police Department and held signing ceremonies in Jackson, Palmyra and suburban St. Louis.

Missouri has regularly led the country in meth busts, though it started dropping off immediately after the 2005 law. That measure capped how much of the pseudoephedrine-based medicines people could buy and required that pharmacists ask the buyer to show a photo identification.

But the Highway Patrol said meth lab incidents started increasing last year. The patrol said part of the problem is that meth producers have been going to multiple pharmacies and buying the maximum amount at each.

Republican House sponsor Kenny Jones, a former county sheriff, said last month when the bill passed that most of the people buying the cold medicines at several Missouri pharmacies are doing it to feed their personal addictions.

Besides going after meth, the legislation also gives specially trained nurses more power.

Advanced practice nurses will be allowed to write their own prescriptions for some controlled substances, including nausea and cough medicines and pain relievers like Vicodin.

Supporters of that provision said it might increase health care access, especially in rural areas where there are few doctors. The prescription authority would apply only to advanced-practice registered nurses who have agreements with doctors.

Missouri nurses with advanced training have been allowed to prescribe some medicines since 1993, but not for those deemed to be controlled substances. According to the state nurses association, only Alabama, Florida and Missouri had barred such nurses from prescribing controlled substances.

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Meth and nurses bill is SB724

On the Net:

Legislature: http://www.moga.mo.gov

Blunt: http://www.gov.mo.gov