CHARLESTON, W.Va. — A Mineral County delegate is on the side of those opposing a proposal to require prescriptions for medicines containing pseudoephedrine in West Virginia
“Making it a prescription for everybody hurts the average citizen and that’s not what we’re here for,” said Delegate Gary Howell (R-Mineral, 56) on Thursday’s MetroNews “Talkline.”
Delegate Don Perdue (D-Wayne, 19), House Health and Human Resources Chairman, is planning to again introduce legislation next year that would require prescriptions for medications that contain what is a key ingredient in meth.
Those medicines are now available over the counter, but state law limits the quantities one person can buy within specified time frames .
Howell said it would make more sense to require such prescriptions for the medications only for people who have already been convicted of drug crimes.
“If we want to do something about drunk driving, we don’t make it harder for sober people to buy cars, we go after the drunks. We need to go after the meth producers, not the law abiding citizens,” said Howell.
Bridget Lambert, West Virginia Retailers Association president, said she thinks the NPLEx system, the National Precursor Log Exchange which tracks pseudoephedrine sales in real time, needs more time to work before changes are made.
NPLEx was implemented in January and Lambert said, so far, it has blocked illegal sales of more than 9,900 boxes of pseudoephedrine.
“We have some stores that are so large that, by the time a person is pushed and put into the system, we can refuse to sell Sudafed. We can say, ‘You’ve reached your limit for this month or this year,'” said Lambert.
The 2014 Regular Legislative Session begins in January.