Friday March 10, 2017, Rep. Bill Post testified in support of his bill to bring “Sudafed” type products to back “behind the counter” as opposed to Oregon’s current law that requires a prescription. In case you couldn’t be there, here is his testimony.
Good morning chair greenlake members of the committee on bill post represent house district 25 which is kaiser st. paul and newburgh just realizes that only a third time i’ve sat in front of a committee like this and it’s not getting any easier it’s still a little weird so i thank you for your time i want to thank you for the opportunity to talk about house bill
2128 dash 1 if you hadn’t noticed there is a very important dash one amendment that israel the guts of this of this bill as you know it rains in oregon as a kid once said to me it doesn’t just rain it pollinates in oregon and we are seeing to be the capital of hay fever colds and and all that that goes with it and while suit of feathering products and in this case
My bill has been affectionately called the sudafed they’ll sudafed doesn’t cure anything it sure makes you a lot feel a lot better it just it makes life a lot easier and i’ve heard from argonians all over the state about the desire to bring suit of editing products back in a more responsible way and in fact on your oldest you can see many emails that we uploaded
Those are just a few most of them are from the portland area because at this point they’re frustrated enough to just go across the border into washington today you’re going to hear that bringing back sudafed through this bill will return us to the days of meth labs with trailers and starving children and unfortunately the data shows that while meth lab use has gone
Down in oregon though that decline started before sudafed was restricted the use of meth has gone up because it’s no longer being made in a lab in somebody’s backyard it’s being brought over the border in pure liquid form i’ll be walking you through a presentation which combines two studies the bowl studies are available to you separately on olas the namm still
Study and the max gust study which i’ll define for you then amstel is the national alliance for model state drug laws and the other is get that real quick is the i’ve combined these two reports to make it a little easier but again you can read them separately is the national association of state controlled substance authorities so if you want to follow along its on
The screen there and i’m going to just i’m not going to read everything i’m just going to touch on some things in july of 2006 oregon became the first state to require a prescription for products containing sudafed erine and ephedrine such as cold and allergy medications mississippi implemented a similar law in 2010 both states experienced substantial reductions
In the number of meth labs asia in oregon the number of meth related labs deaths has been increasing since 2007 with numbers reaching their highest levels in 2014 methos now surpassed heroin as the leading drug causing death in the state the research team concluded that the relationship between the pse prescription laws and the decline in meth lab incidents is
Spurious for the following reason similar decreases in the number of meth lab incidents occurred in surrounding states for both oregon and mississippi suggesting a regional trend as opposed to a unique event in each of the two states cases law enforcement agencies in oregon and mississippi rivers an f supply is remained plentiful throughout the study period with
Meth imported from mexico making up for any lost domestic meth production mexican drug traffickers may have contributed to the decline in meth labs in both mississippi and oregon and surrounding states as they were able to provide ample supply of equal or greater quality meth at competitive prices since 2010 over a hundred bills have been filed in 27 states with
Prescription only provisions yet oregon in mississippi remained the only two states with the prescription only mandate electronic tracking and block of sales to those exceeding quantity limits is the most common approach states are using with 32 states having taken this step to regulate access to pse recently you may have read in the news multnomah county’s biggest
Drug bust ever februari 23rd 2017 hundred a hundred pounds of meth highlights a new trend in this drug trafficking inside the home agents discovered several more pounds of crystal meth as well as canisters containing liquid sudafed ring which is what meth is made from now liquid suit of fettering that’s converted into crystal meth the bus shows that the latest
Trends in mexican drug cartels are using to avoid detection fascinating this was they’re bringing the liquid suit of feathering in gas tanks car batteries and windshield wiper fluid compartments into the us where it is then converted into crystal meth or ice once it reaches the state or city of distribution law enforcement officials in oregon note that in every
Meth lab incident that has occurred since the prescription only law was implemented where the source of pse sudafed ring could be traced the cpsc originated from one of the four surrounding states that came from the gao and 2013 for both oregon and mississippi not only did a number of meth incidents excuse me lab incidents in those states dropped after the law’s
Implementation lab incidents declined and surrounding states as well the same basic lab incidents trends occurred in mississippi surrounding states with the exception of tennessee all states experienced at least an eighty-five percent reduction in the number of labatts and it’s between 2004 and 2014 this is a little bit of a graph i hope you can see that okay what’s
Interesting about it is there was a ninety-nine percent dick decrease in lab incidents from 2004 to 2014 but what’s fascinating about this chart is there were 632 lab incidents in 2004 two years before the law was implemented the very next year before the law was implemented it dropped to 232 and before the law went into place in 2006 dropped down to 66 so it was
Already dropping before this law became the court of this bill became law the reduction in lab incidents occurred in all states bordering oregon washington california idaho nevada all five states experienced at least a ninety-five percent decrease in the number of meth lab incidents throughout the 2004 2014 period you can see that line that shows where the law came
In the prescription law enacted and you can see that it was already dropping before that we had done a good job by putting it behind the counter law enforcement identifies mexico as the primary source of oregon’s meth with a small amount being produced in california and the southwest the report also mentions the number of meth seizures and pounds of meth seized
Has increased substantially since 2007 the year after the law came into effect in 2010 forces seized 157 pounds of meth but this number tripled to 578 pounds in 2014 not only is crystal meth from mexico california and texas a problem law enforcement still encounters domestic meth produced via the one pot or shaken bake methods but what they found is that’s usually
For personal consumption it’s not being massively sold the authors of the nasc a report that i’m referring to found no evidence of changes in methamphetamine consumption or arrest for drug possession suggesting external sources of supply / national borders the authors also found no significant impact for oregon’s regulation as seizures they’re here in oregon and
Nearby western states had largely bottom doubt monks before the regulation was implemented given that demand for meth changes very little with price the authors suggest that there a state that their failure to find evidence for higher prices suggest that the disruptive effects of prescription only legislation on meth availability is quite small this may likely be
Due to international imports being readily available to displace domestic producers the authors concluded that while prescription only laws can reduce the number of domestic small m fet methamphetamine labs and operation methamphetamine availability is unlikely to be materially impacted and while the authors acknowledge that a prescription only requirement would
Likely reduce pse purchase for illicit use and curb methamphetamine production and cost their model indicated that a prescription only policy would result in new physician visits and significant increases in out-of-pocket patient costs as well as public and private payer costs and now my solution to this and on my solution i wish it was his n flex its provided
Free of charge on a permanent basis to state governments that pass appropriate legislation regulations that is what the dash 1 amendment is this did not exist in 2005 and 2006 when that bill was passed so the good intentions of that bill which i admire because we had a horrible problem is solved through this n plex situation what i want to show you is that’s just
A screenshot of what a pharmacy would see or a police department would see if they downloaded the program and let me just give you a quick overview of the program while you’re looking at that screenshot n plex is a public-private partnership offering a real-time electronic methamphetamine precursor tracking system free of charge to law enforcement state governments
And pharmacist the partners are the national association of drug diversion investigators the manufacturer and the technology vendor is a pris i hope i’m pronouncing that correctly the cost of the state government is none it’s free law enforcement officers simply contact apra sand request the service upon verification the officers receive a username and password and
Have access to the system how does it work the federal combat methamphetamine epidemic act of 2005 emea as well as numerous state local laws require retailers the products containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine to capture customer data at the point of sale that’s what this does why is real-time so important it enables the blocking of sales smurfing as its called
What about server software hardware it’s entirely web-based there’s no server needed no software and a hardware you just load it onto your computer right off the internet or just use the cloud-based version of it there’s blocked sales all retailers in the system voluntarily blocked the sale of precursors that would exceed any law of jurisdiction including 3.6 grams
Per day and nine grams and 30 days which again we’ve written into the bill here’s the interesting thing how many stores are using mplex over 20,000 retailers in the united states in 36 states are currently using it including cvs rite aid super value in stores here in oregon the last thing that i want to show you is this was purely by accident in september like the
Timbre of this past year during the campaign season there was a company that did some polling that was used for the governor’s race for the secretary of state race and the presidential race in oregon they were kind enough to allow me to have this question posed to a very very and you can find all the crosstabs and everything on olas here’s the interesting thing
I want this question asked over the counter so think about this people were asked do you support over the counter purchase of ceuta fettering products you’ll find as it says those 65 years an old 65 younger than 65 years are the strongest supporters they were asked as you may know oregonians are required to obtain a doctor’s prescription for products that contain
The drug suit of veteran which is commonly sold in cough and cold products such as sudafed this was done to fight the methamphetamine epidemic that was ravaging oregon at the time and the law was implemented in 2006 would you favor or oppose repealing this law and allowing oregonians with proper identification to purchase these products over the counter without a
Doctor’s prescription and as you can see fifty-seven percent said they favor this those are oregonians oregonians want their suit of fettering products back in a simpler way so i conclude with this this is a bill to help the quality of life for all oregonians and i especially point out because of the cost i have to go to my doctor and depending on what your doctor
Charges 05 $125 to tell me that i have the sniffles to write a prescription for me that i have to take down to i go to fred meyer north and to get a product that costs more because it’s a prescription now when i just had a person email me this morning i couldn’t get it here in time said they go up to lynnwood washington costco show their id which is exactly what
I’m asking in this bill and they got four packages of sudafed for a buck and a half apiece so i ask you this the tangible step that we didn’t take to make healthcare more affordable and that’s what you guys do on a regular basis but i thank you so much members of this committee and appreciate the time that you’ve given
Transcribed from video
Rep. Post Testifies in Support of "Sudafed Rx Repeal" HB 2128 By Bill Post