Drugs reformulated to slow meth making

[BlueMystic]

http://www.columbiatribune.com/2005/...703News009.asp


Companies to reformulate drugs to halt meth making


Under pressure from law enforcement agencies and state governments, drug companies have begun reformulating popular cold medicines to prevent criminals from converting them into methamphetamine.

"This is the direction we’re moving," said Elizabeth Assey, spokeswoman for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association in Washington, D.C., a lobbying organization for the cold medicine industry.

Pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient in a number of over-the-counter drugs, such as Sudafed and Sinutab, can be extracted by boiling down cold medicines. Toxic chemicals are then used to turn the substance into meth.

More than a dozen states already have restricted access, either by allowing only pharmacies to sell drugs with pseudoephedrine or making retailers sell them from staffed counters. A May report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy found a 50 percent drop in the number of meth labs in Oklahoma and Oregon, two of the first states to enact such restrictions.

But law enforcement officials and others believe that reformulating the drugs can reduce the problem even more by helping shut down the small labs operating nationwide.

Pfizer Inc., the manufacturer of Sudafed and other leading pseudoephedrine products, plans to reformulate as many as half of them with phenylephrine by January.

Leiner Health Products, which supplies generic cold and allergy drugs to retail chains such as Costco, Target, Walgreens and Wal-Mart, began shipping new products containing phenylephrine in June.

McNeil Consumer & Specialty Pharmaceuticals, a division of Johnson & Johnson, also is considering reformulation of a variety of its products.

And the world’s largest producer of phenylephrine, Boehringer-Ingelheim of Germany, says it can boost production capacity for the substitute ingredient by enough so the entire U.S. supply of pseudoephedrine could be replaced by 2006.

The meth problem is particularly severe in the Midwest, where rural areas provide cover for the pungent chemical odor from meth labs. In Missouri, law enforcement officers seized more than 2,700 meth labs last year - more than any other state.

"It’s such a drain," said Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics. He said meth abuse forces law enforcement to spend millions of dollars on toxic cleanup, prisons and increased caseloads.

But pharmaceutical companies are moving cautiously to make sure substitutes are effective and to await proposed federal legislation that could affect how they reformulate some of their products, said Assey, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association spokeswoman.

"It’s the first step in a long process, from an industry standpoint," she said.

The meth problem has been a growing scourge in recent years. The National Clandestine Laboratory Seizure System, which collects data from state police agencies, shows that reported meth lab seizures increased from 6,777 in 1999 to 10,182 in 2003.