(The Oregonian) SALEM — The Oregon Legislature took a major step Wednesday toward passage of a first-in-the-nation bill requiring prescriptions for cold and allergy medicines containing an ingredient used to make methamphetamine.
The House voted 55-4 to send the bill to the Senate even as legislators said they knew that many of their constituents would resent the inconvenience and expense of having to get a prescription for common drugs such as Sudafed and Claritin D.
Sponsors said they expected the measure to swiftly pass the Senate and be signed into law by Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
UPDATE: Big Pharma’s interest in this after the jump…
The meth epidemic has everyone on edge (pun intended) here in Oregon. We have the highest per-capita rates of meth abuse in the country and our great rural desert expanses are just perfect for housing a meth lab.
Politicians are desperate to do something about it. Earlier we made it so you had to show ID and sign a log for a pharmacist who keeps all the Sudafed-like cold remedies behind the counter. Law enforcement officials say this alone has cut down the number of home meth lans they’ve busted by half, so the prohibitionist mindset was rewarded with a small success, and now they want to do more.
This was merely an inconvenience, like the time my wife went to the Fred Meyer to get me some Thera-Flu. Fred Meyer is open until 10:00PM, but their pharmacy section locks up at 7:00PM, so she missed it. My little Irish redheaded spitfire let the managers know what she thought about that.
But now we’re talking about a serious inconvenience plus unnecessary added costs. Now if you want to get the $6 box of Sudafed, you’ve got to take time off work, drive to your doctor, wait the customary hour after you’ve arrived on time for your appointment, wait another thirty minutes in the little room they put you in to separate you from the others so you can contemplate in private how important the doctor’s time must be, get that prescription for your case of the sniffles, pay your $15 or $20 or $30 co-pay (assuming you have insurance, of course, which is assuming a lot), drive back to your pharmacy and get your $6 Sudafed.
We can pretty much figure the poor and uninsured aren’t going to go through this and I doubt very many insured people will go to the trouble, either. Sales of these remedies will plummet and the parent corporations will realize there’s no profit in selling these drugs in Oregon. Maybe they stop distributing to Oregon altogther, and poof, nobody gets Sudafed, even with a prescription.
UPDATE: My wife gave me some perspective on this. She worked in health insurance for a long time. I was wondering how pissed Big Pharma would be when this bill becomes law and the demand for Sudafed, Claritin, Thera-Flu, Nyquil-D, etc. dries up and cuts into their profits.
“Are you kidding? This is exactly what big drug companies want. When Claritin-D was a prescription drug, they made a killing and were absolutely pissed that it became over-the-counter.”
Why is that, my beloved li’l redhead?
“Because when you’re a prescription drug, you can charge $45 for the box. Prescription drugs can then be part of your health insurance plan, insurance picks up $35 of the tab, you pay $10, all for a box that costs the company $3. When they had to go OTC, the drug has to compete with OTC prices, they drop the price to $6 and instead of $42 profit, they only make $3.”
Ahhh, I knew there had to be a Big Pharma profit motive in there somewhere!
Then there’s the unintended consequences. Drug stores in Payette (Idaho), Vancouver (Washington), Kennewick (Washington), Tulelake (California) and Yreka (California) must be licking their lips in anticipation of all the cross-border traffic they’ll be getting from Ontario, Portland, Hermiston, Klamath Falls, and Medford. I’m guessing that the merchants in those Oregon towns will be sad to lose the business.
“But Russ”, you think, “who’s going to go to that trouble to drive across state lines to get a $6 box of Sudafed?” Well, there’s plenty of people in the Portland/Vancouver, Hermiston/Kennewick, and Ontario/Payette metro areas who make that cross-river commute every day. If they live in Oregon and work in Washington or Idaho, why wouldn’t they make a trip to the store to pick up some Sudafed, even if they’re not sick? You never know when you might need some.
That brings up the possibility of being picked up with some Sudafed on you without the accompanying prescription:
Rep. Tom Butler, R-Ontario, raised concerns that visitors to Oregon could be arrested for carrying pseudoephedrine that wasn’t purchased with a prescription.
Supporters said they doubted that would happen. Rice said it was just “common sense” that someone carrying medicine for personal use would not be arrested. He noted that there are already several prescription drugs regulated differently by various states.
Does anyone else get a chill thinking about being stopped by police while illegally carrying a drug in Oregon and relying on the common sense of the officer involved to keep you out of jail?
Eventually this law is going to lead to some small-time smuggling as well. Let’s get hypothetical — An Oregonian is laid out with the flu, his buddy is in California for the weekend, Oregonian makes the phone call: “Hey, bud, when you come back from Yosemite, would you mind grabbing a couple boxes of Sudafed? I have the flu from hell.” Buddy drives back, gets pulled over for speeding, officer wonders why there’s not one but two boxes of Sudafed on the passenger seat.
Or how about — receptionist at the office is the go-to girl when you need an aspirin. She already keeps a little tip jar for her co-workers to drop a few coins into to help pay for the aspirin. Maybe she gets smart and brings back a couple of boxes of Sudafed from her vacation and starts offering them for a buck a pop.
Of course all of these inconveniences and the potential legal harassment of innocent people are irrelevant, because we’re doing it to protect the children:
You can vote no on House Bill 2485 and assure then that people can be treated for their sniffles,” said Rep. Wayne Krieger, R-Gold Beach. “You can vote yes on HB2485 and protect Oregonians and their children from the scourge of meth and give them an opportunity for a meth-free future.”
Or you can continue to spout ridiculous platitudes about saving the children and eliminating drug use like every other prohibitionist before you, only to discover the natural law that prohibition does not work. And ain’t it funny how the “good of the children” argument doesn’t seem to work for handgun control?
I’ve written this many times, but it bears repeating: You cannot reduce demand by eliminating supply. It’s Economics 101: if there is an inelastic demand for an item there will always be a supplier to fill it. Prescription pseudoephedrine may eliminate some of the small mom-and-pop meth labs, but then larger producers and distributers will be more than willing to take up the slack. What may have been dozens of small poor home labs supplying themselves and a small circle of friends will become a few bigtime labs with lots of money and power. While the number of labs busted has gone down since the last pseudoephedrine restriction, the number of users treated is still on the rise, supplied by huge Mexican super-labs and smuggled into the state.
The only way to combat meth is on the demand side. Why do people want meth? It’s cheap and effective; ten dollars worth of meth can give you 10 hours worth of high. The same amount of marijuana might get you a joint and an hour of fun, a crack rock for a twenty minute high, a drink and a beer at a bar for a minimal buzz, or laughed out of your cocaine dealers house for even suggesting such as small amount. It’s incredibly addictive. It gives you the energy to work long and hard at menial or repetitive tasks – perfect for our workaholic society. And it feels really really good, which for some people living in poverty and despair may be the only good they ever feel. Only education, treatment, and a life worth living can combat that demand.
Finally, think about what this restriction is saying. We’ve got restrictions against possessing certain drugs, explosives, certain chemicals, and wild animals because they are dangerous to yourself and potentially the community. Now we’re restricting something that when used as intended is beneficial to the user and harmless to the community solely because a very few people misuse it.
