NACDS emphasizes pharmacy's role in preventing meth abuse, production
ALEXANDRIA, Va. In a statement to Congress Tuesday, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores emphasized pharmacy’s voluntary and proactive measures to help fight methamphetamine production and abuse, and urged against requiring patients to obtain prescriptions for pseudoephedrine products.
“Our membership remains committed to working with law enforcement to address this ongoing problem in a manner that stops criminal activity while ensuring that legitimate consumers continue to have access to medications for treatment of colds, flu, and allergies,” NACDS stated.
The statement was made in response to the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, which held a hearing Tuesday morning on "The Status of Meth: Oregon's Experience Making Pseudoephedrine Prescription Only.”
NACDS suggested that a nationwide electronic system to track sales of these products would be more effective at crime-fighting and more patient-friendly than a move to prescription-only status for these products.
Earlier Tuesday morning, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association suggested Congress ought to amend and strengthen the federal Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act by requiring nationwide electronic tracking for all over-the-counter sales of cold-and-allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine.
CHPA president Linda Suydam committed on behalf of industry to fund a national e-tracking system, the system that NACDS is endorsing, and work with the retail community to expand the National Precursor Log Exchange system currently being implemented in eight states that have passed e-tracking legislation.
“We are asking Congress to significantly improve the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act by leveraging cutting-edge technology to block illegal pseudoephedrine sales nationwide,” Suydam stated. “Electronic tracking offers the best solution to reducing methamphetamine labs without imposing a costly and unnecessary prescription mandate. Our goal is to stop illegal pseudoephedrine sales while maintaining important over-the-counter access to the 15 million consumers who rely on these medicines each year.”