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The pharmaceutical industry is offering to develop a database that would help Kansas and Missouri enforce new laws limiting the purchase of a key ingredient for making methamphetamine.
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association said the electronic database would link the two states to a network that would track purchases of cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine.
Both states have passed laws limiting the amount of cold medicine people can buy. But because neither had the money to develop a database, those laws weren't as effective as lawmakers had hoped.
In Missouri, which has long held the distinction as the biggest meth-making state, an administrator with the Department of Health and Senior Services said the estimated cost to start a database in the state is $800,000, with an additional $500,000 per year needed to maintain it.
The price tag is a little more modest in Kansas, where officials estimated startup cost at $350,000.
"It's going to be free to law enforcement, free to the states," said John Burke, president of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators. "You get a valuable product for free. We're all looking for something like that."
Burke said that as part of the deal, his group will help train law enforcement and pharmacy workers in the data systems, which will be created by Appriss Inc. of Louisville, Ky.
Other states that have electronic databases — including Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky — will be able to link to the system. Sales will automatically be refused to anyone who tries to buy more than the legal limit of cold medicine, and police will be able to use the system to investigate.
Missouri had 1,487 meth labs last year and 842 for the first six months of this year. In eastern Missouri, the city of Washington has passed a law making cold medicine a prescription drug there, and others are considering similar laws.
Elizabeth Funderburk, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, said the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want people to use over-the-counter drugs to make illegal substances, nor does it want lawmakers to require prescriptions for the drugs.
"A lot of consumers out there rely on those medicines," she said, adding that people shouldn't have to take time off and pay for doctors' appointments to get them.
The pharmaceutical industry is offering to develop a database that would help Kansas and Missouri enforce new laws limiting the purchase of a key ingredient for making methamphetamine.
The Consumer Healthcare Products Association said the electronic database would link the two states to a network that would track purchases of cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine.
Both states have passed laws limiting the amount of cold medicine people can buy. But because neither had the money to develop a database, those laws weren't as effective as lawmakers had hoped.
In Missouri, which has long held the distinction as the biggest meth-making state, an administrator with the Department of Health and Senior Services said the estimated cost to start a database in the state is $800,000, with an additional $500,000 per year needed to maintain it.
The price tag is a little more modest in Kansas, where officials estimated startup cost at $350,000.
"It's going to be free to law enforcement, free to the states," said John Burke, president of the National Association of Drug Diversion Investigators. "You get a valuable product for free. We're all looking for something like that."
Burke said that as part of the deal, his group will help train law enforcement and pharmacy workers in the data systems, which will be created by Appriss Inc. of Louisville, Ky.
Other states that have electronic databases — including Arkansas, Oklahoma and Kentucky — will be able to link to the system. Sales will automatically be refused to anyone who tries to buy more than the legal limit of cold medicine, and police will be able to use the system to investigate.
Missouri had 1,487 meth labs last year and 842 for the first six months of this year. In eastern Missouri, the city of Washington has passed a law making cold medicine a prescription drug there, and others are considering similar laws.
Elizabeth Funderburk, a spokeswoman for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association, said the pharmaceutical industry doesn't want people to use over-the-counter drugs to make illegal substances, nor does it want lawmakers to require prescriptions for the drugs.
"A lot of consumers out there rely on those medicines," she said, adding that people shouldn't have to take time off and pay for doctors' appointments to get them.
