DENVER—Colorado lawmakers rejected legislation aimed at blocking methamphetamine production by requiring prescriptions to buy some common cold medicines like Sudafed, a move senators said Thursday would be burdensome to consumers and retailers.
Opponents of the bill also cited increased health care costs because people would have to visit the doctor to get permission to buy cold medicines. One senator who said meth ruined his brother’s life argued the measure was an example of government overstepping its bounds.
“We should define illegal acts and we should detect them and punish them when we can, but when everyone else has to say, ‘Mother may I?’ to address their cold, I think government has gotten far too powerful,” said Sen. Shawn Mitchell, R-Broomfield.
The Senate Committee on Health and Human Services voted 7-2 to shelve the legislation.
Bill sponsor Sen. Betty Boyd, D-Lakewood, argued that lawmakers should also weigh the costs meth has on society.
“The bill is here because I think the costs to the community are too high,” she said.
Senate Bill 196 sought to require prescriptions for drugs containing certain chemicals needed for meth production. Many of those products are already kept behind the counter and require a customer to ask for them, but this bill would further limit those drugs.
Oregon and Mississippi have already made those cold medicines prescription-only. Other states have rejected similar proposals after complaints the change would be too much of an inconvenience.
A fiscal analysis prepared for Colorado lawmakers said the change could cost $275,000 a year in lost sales taxes.
Boyd said she understood opponents’ concerns, but that they should also recognize the dangers of meth.
“What we’re not thinking about is the other side of the coin—of all of the costs to all of us in the public of methamphetamine, of the terrible cleanup, the damage that’s done to particularly around children who are exposed,” Boyd said.
Mitchell said he’s aware of the detrimental effects of meth and spoke of the toll it’s taken on his younger brother.
“I’m also aware that all of the laws against methamphetamine haven’t been able to make the cost or the risk high enough for him not to make the choice to ruin his own life,” he said. “At the same time, I’m very aware of lots of burdens and inconvenience and restrictions that we’re imposing on the vast majority of law-abiding citizens chasing something that we’ll never effectively stamp out.”
Thornton police Sgt. Jim Gerhardt spoke on behalf of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association and the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police in support of the legislation, saying drug investigations show meth producers have developed a system of obtaining materials for the drug by visiting different pharmacies to buy cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, which can be used to make meth.
“So we know that these methamphetamine producers, even our local ones, have certainly gotten wise to the fact that you can go from pharmacy to pharmacy to pharmacy, simply buying the legal amounts of pseudoephedrine and produce methamphetamine,” he said.
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Senate Bill 196:
