Editor, Times-Union: It is truly gratifying when a bill I author becomes law, and even more gratifying when that law has an immediate and compelling impact on my district and the State of Indiana.
Last year, I authored a new law that required the implementation of real-time, technology throughout Indiana that would track sales of Pseudoephedrine (PSE), a common ingredient in over-the-counter cold medicine, like Sudafed and Advil Cold & Sinus. The goal was to stop the sale of PSE to persons who had already purchased their legal monthly limit (the law reduced that limit from 9 grams to 7.2 grams per month), and thereby inhibit the ability of methamphetamine manufacturers to purchase large amounts of PSE, which can be used in the making of meth.
Prior to the Jan. 1, 2012, effective date, many Indiana pharmacies voluntarily implemented the National Precursor Log Exchange (NPLEx), which allows a clerk or pharmacist to check whether a person exceeds the legal limit. If so, it blocks the sale at the counter. NPLEx also provides law enforcement with valuable information that helps track down and arrest meth offenders. Despite the fact that the law only calls for weekly reports, NPLEx has been reporting daily – and the results are impressive. So far, the real-time, stop-sale system has blocked the sale of more than 36,000 packages of PSE in Indiana. Nearly 12,000 of those potential illegal sales have been stopped in the 30 days since the law went into effect.
Specifically, in Elkhart County the illegal sale of 2,719 boxes of PSE has been stopped. In Kosciusko County, that number is 554. In Wabash County, that number is 104.
Equally good news is that law-abiding citizens, like working moms, can still legally and conveniently purchase over-the-counter medicines containing PSE, when their families need it, at their neighborhood pharmacy.
Northern Indiana, like many parts of the state, has a serious meth problem. Some would argue that the only way to stop meth is for PSE to become a prescription-only medicine. Proponents of this approach, unfortunately, miss several important points.
1. Prescription-only status would require working moms to take time off work, remove their children from school, and pay a doctor’s co-pay, just to be told their child needs cold medicine, which as good moms, they already knew.
2. Prescription-only status would simply encourage meth dealers to steal physician prescription pads, make copies and write unlimited prescriptions. These pads are not currently forgery proof.
3. The online tracking law has only been in effect for one month, and the statistics are compelling. We should give the new law a full year of experience before judging it.
4. Oregon enacted a prescription requirement in 2005 and meth production and abuse remains a major problem there today.
Bottom line: We should make criminals’ lives difficult, not the lives of working moms.
Senator Carlin Yoder Republican member of the Senate representing Goshen
