Senate to hear bill to ban drug offenders from cold medicine

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) – Drug offenders won’t be able to buy cold medicine with a common ingredient in methamphetamine without a prescription under a bill passed by a Senate panel.

The Senate Appropriations Committee approved the pseudoephedrine (sue-doe-EFF’-uh-drin) measure Thursday.

The measure requires the Indiana State Police to add drug offender information to the National Precursor Log Exchange, which is a log of over-the-counter sales of pseudoephedrine.

Under the bill, the system would issue an alert to a pharmacy to stop a sale if a customer’s information matches data in NPLEx. Thirty-two states, including Indiana, currently use NPLEx to track sales.

Bill author Republican Sen. Michael Young of Indianapolis proposed a similar measure last year that failed in the House.

This year’s bill now heads to the full Senate for consideration.