Legislative session ends without Senate vote on pseudoephedrine prescription bill

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Time's up for Missouri's lawmakers.

The 2011 legislative session ended Friday, and for the fifth consecutive year it ended before the Missouri House of Representatives and Senate could both approve legislation that would make pseudoephedrine available only with a doctor's prescription statewide.

Law enforcement officials like Cape Girardeau County Sheriff John Jordan are still encouraged, though, as the legislation made it further, and gained more support, than ever before. Missouri House members passed the bill 86-64 Monday. Their version would have banned the cold medication to people without a prescription, exempting gel tablets and liquids. The Senate's bill didn't get past a committee hearing Wednesday night, according to Rep. Dave Schatz, a Republican from Sullivan, Mo., who sponsored the House's bill.

Pseudoephedrine is a key component to making methamphetamine.

"It puts the bill in very good shape for next year," said Jordan, who testified in support of the bill on several occasions. "There was not enough time, and I think the Senate wants to give it healthy debate. If it starts in both sides early ... I think next year we have a really good change of getting it passed."

Other than the timing -- the Senate only had two days to review the bill -- Schatz said Sen. Jack Goodman, chairman of the committee that had the bill, would have liked more information on how gel tablets or liquid pseudoephedrine products could be used in the manufacturing of methamphetamine.

Schatz said he anticipates the bill will surface in next year's session.

Since first being introduced in 2007, pseudoephedrine prescription legislation has faced large opposition, mostly from the Missouri Pharmacy Association and the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, which this year asked lawmakers to give a new statewide electronic tracking database time to be successful. The system, implemented in January, tracks sales of pseudoephedrine and blocks buyers from exceeding the legal limit.

"We don't want our products used for making meth," said CHPA lobbyist Mandy Hagan at a March hearing. "I disagree that if we pass this prescription requirement here, that we won't be back here again in a couple years."

Hagan did not return calls to her office.

Jordan and other law enforcement officials, like Franklin County investigator Jason Grellner, said pharmaceutical lobbyists played a part in blocking the bill from passing.

"To have such a good vote on the House floor is monumental," Grellner said. "But when you're up against the strongest lobbyists with the most amount of money, you can't keep up. But we battled with facts."

In March, CHPA ads began running in newspapers and on radio stations throughout the state. Ads urged residents to call their local lawmakers and tell them to "keep government out of your medicine cabinet."

Grellner said more than a third of Missouri pharmacies now require a prescription. "Communities being leaders has forced the state government to take notice and understand what the citizens want," he said.

Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Scott City, Poplar Bluff and Sikeston, Mo., all have enacted ordinances requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine.

Dawn Thurnau, director of communications for the Missouri Pharmacy Association, said if lawmakers passed the legislation it would have eliminated the industry's ability to track purchases. In six months, the tracking system has blocked 30,000 pseudoephedrine transactions.

It would have also placed a burden on the already stressed health care system, Thurnau said.

"We're pleased that Missouri lawmakers aren't making it harder for hardworking, law-abiding citizens to purchase one of the most effective medicines for cold and allergy sufferers," she said.

ehevern@semissourian.com

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