Indiana’s Meth Problem
9.23.15 – National Federation of Independent Businesses
As a small business owner, you may not think that the meth issue affects you, but proposed legislation may negatively affect you and your business. Unfortunately, there is a significant meth issue in Indiana – especially with the influx of Mexican meth into the state. In an attempt to combat the issue, past legislative sessions have proposed legislation that attempted to create restrictions on safe and effective medicine containing pseudoephedrine (PSE). Known commercially as products such as Sudafed-D or Zyrtec-D, these popular cold and allergy medicines are misused by a small number of criminals to create meth.
The proposed legislation has ranged from making the drug available by prescription-only – requiring every citizen to see a physician to access their decongestant – to a meth offender block list – which would only require those who have previously been convicted of a meth crime obtain a prescription. The prescription-only policy has been adopted in Oregon and Mississippi with mixed results. According to the independent National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, “the relationship between the PSE prescription laws and the decline in meth lab incidents is spurious.” On the other hand, states such as Oklahoma and Alabama have seen reductions in meth labs by almost 80 percent with their block lists – all without burdening law-abiding citizens.
Read more here.