Pharmacist bill on meth ingredient clears Senate panel

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Pharmacists may get the legal right to deny suspicious customers from buying cold medicine used to make methamphetamine under a bill that has cleared a Senate committee.

Bill author Republican Sen. Randy Head of Logansport says the measure approved Tuesday won’t completely eliminate the state’s meth problem but he hopes it will free up police to focus on stopping the drug from being imported into Indiana.

Opponents to the bill called for lawmakers to explore adding a prescription requirement for medicine that contains the meth ingredient, pseudoephedrine. Similar measures have failed in previous years.

However, the Senate committee advanced another bill that would ban drug offenders from buying pseudoephedrine medicines without a prescription.

The House will hear that proposal Wednesday as well as other options to undermine meth production.