I recently posted information on House Bill 2941 that requires any pharmacy that dispenses sells or distributes any compound mixture or preparation containing any detectable quantity of base pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, its salts or optical isomers, or salts of optical isomers shall maintain an electronic record of the sale.
The Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Public Safety and Judiciary gave a do pass recommendation Wednesday.
It was noted that the bill changes the limit from 9 grams in a 30 day period to 3.4 grams per day or 7.1 grams within any thirty-day period or 60 within a twelve-month period.
The question has been asked- So what does this “grams allowed mean?” There are 1000 milligrams in 1 gram. This means that a box containing 100 tablets with 60 milligrams of Pseudoephedrine each, yield a total of 6 grams. This is more that you would be allowed to purchase in a day. You would need to get a 50 count container of the medicine to meet the 3.4 grams per day rule.
You could by 2 of the 50 count boxes of allergy or cold medication in a month which would be 6 grams of Pseudoephedrine for that 30 day period, falling below the 7.1 limit. This would allow around 3 pills a day per person.
The bill notes that a person has the limits not an address so it would follow that a household with two adults could purchase twice the allowed dosage for a single person. So if you and your husband or wife takes the medication there would be no major issues- except the tracking of your purchases of course.
You are correct that the 3.4 and the 7.1 is per person and it is designed to slow down the flow of pseudoephedrine going to the meth cooks.
ReplyDeleteThis bill has been gutted and I would rather see it stay the same as it is now that to pass a feel good measure like this tracking system that has failed in every state it has been used in.
Kentucky installed it in 2008 and watched meth labs climb from 302 to 1,256 in 2011.
I had two amendments sponsored by Representative Sean Roberts that would have stopped 70% of Oklahoma's meth labs without any prescription and the drug lobby got them taken out.
I will bet money that when all it totaled on what the pseudoephedrine lobby has given to Oklahoma lawmakers it will be around $400,000 in the past two months.
The pseudoephedrine lobbies lawyers wrote this bill and it is the same one that is going all around the U.S. so that should tell you something.
Hang on to your hats because meth proof pseudoephedrine just passed DEA testing and that will be a game changer next year and I have the news story on my web site about this if you want to check it out.