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Grellner testified Monday evening before a Senate committee considering a bill that would require a doctor's prescription to purchase cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine, the vital ingredient needed to make meth. He will go before a House committee Wednesday.
Supporters say making the common decongestant a prescription drug will keep meth cooks from getting the large amounts of pseudoephedrine needed to make the illegal drug.
Opponents of the bill, including two of the state's medical groups, say requiring a prescription would increase waiting times and costs for patients who need only basic medical care.
Under current law, people can buy up to 9 grams of pseudoephedrine every 30 days in Missouri, but purchases must be made through a pharmacy and the buyer must sign a log and provide identification.
Police use the pharmacy logs to track people who abuse the law. But meth cooks are getting around that with a practice called "pill smurfing," using groups of people to make purchases at multiple pharmacies.
Last year, Missouri passed a law authorizing electronic monitoring of pharmacy logs but failed to appropriate money to pay for the system.
Ron Fitzwater, executive director of the Missouri Pharmacy Association, told the committee that system has not been given a chance to work.
"We think that is still the best option," Fitzwater said. "It continues to keep legitimate products available for legitimate patients."
Grellner said states which have adopted electronic monitoring are still seeing an increase in meth labs. Kentucky, for example, which has a "stop sale" provision in its electronic monitoring law, saw meth labs increase 27 percent, from 278 in 2007 to 411 in 2008, Grellner noted.
"In every state that has electronic monitoring, meth labs went up. Electronic monitoring does not stop meth labs," he said in an interview with The Missourian.
"The huge, unintended consequence of electronic monitoring," Grellner said, is that it has increased the black market price for pseudoephedrine. In Missouri, he said, a $10 box of cold medicine now sells for $25 to $50 on the black market. In Kentucky, with its stop sale provision, the price is $75 a box.
People addicted to other drugs are buying cold pills and selling them to meth cooks to fund their habits, Grellner said. People who are out of work are doing the same thing to make money.
"We're criminalizing more people," Grellner remarked. "These people are being prosecuted at the federal level. The pharmaceutical industry is not paying to incarcerate them. But they are reaping the benefits of selling pseudoephedrine."
Sponsoring Sen. Jason Crowell, R-Cape Girardeau, agreed that some opponents are driven by profits.
"Everyone knows that this product is being used in the manufacture of meth," Crowell said during the committee hearing. "We don't have that many colds in the state of Missouri," the AP reported.
Rep. Jeff Roorda, D-Barnhart, sponsored a similar bill in the House. He argued requiring a prescription for the drugs is much more effective than creating an electronic log.
That way, he said, "the state's not dumping money into a database that we don't know will work," the AP reported.
The number of meth labs in Missouri increased by 200 to 1,487 in 2008. Missouri labs account for almost a quarter of the meth lab busts in the United States, which saw an increase from about 5,500 labs in 2007 to 6,750 in 2008, Grellner said.
The state of Oregon, the only state to make pseudoephedrine a prescription drug, had only three labs last year, Grellner said. That state has all but eliminated meth labs with the legislation, he added.
"I guess it makes too much common sense to do it," Grellner remarked. He said citizens need to contact their legislators and urge them to support the bills.
Opponents argue that making pseudoephedrine a prescription drug will cost the state $400,000 a year in sales tax revenue, Grellner said.
What they don't say, Grellner said, is that the average cost for each meth lab is $350,000, including the costs of law enforcement to catch and prosecute offenders, cleanup costs, processing children through the Division of Family Services and incarceration.
The state's main doctors group says the prescription bill could clog doctors offices and drive up fees, and waiting times, for basic cold medicine.
"It's just a little bit more burdensome for doctors and a little more costly for patients," said Jeff Howell, a lobbyist for the Missouri State Medical Association. "It's just too much of a hassle to receive treatment for that type of cold."
Grellner displayed several cold medicines without pseudoephedrine during the committee hearing, the AP reported.
