http://mycn2.com/politics/conway-stumbo-say-yonts-meth-bill-isn-t-enough

Publication Date: December 14, 2011

Author: Kenny Colston

Conway, Stumbo say Yonts' pseudoephedrine bill isn't enough for law enforcement

One Democratic lawmaker’s proposed compromise on pseudoephedrine doesn’t go far enough in cracking down on “smurfers,” two leading advocates in the fight against drug abuse told Pure Politics.

Democratic House Speaker Greg Stumbo and Democratic Attorney General Jack Conway both said a bill pre-filed by state Rep. Brent Yonts, a Democrat from Greenville, isn’t enough to stop an increase in methamphetamine production and use in Kentucky.

Yonts’ bill would require anyone with a meth-related conviction to have a prescription to buy over the counter cold medicines that include pseudoephedrine, because that ingredient is important in cold medicine and meth production.

But anyone without a conviction could buy the medicines as usual, which would allow an increasing in smurfing, the act in which people are paid to buy cold medicines to give to meth producers, the two Democratic leaders said.

In an extended interview, Stumbo discussed the range of options presented to the General Assembly to combat meth. Those include making all pseudoephedrine available only by prescription, Yonts’ approach and allowing pseudoephedrine in gel caps to remain over the counter, but other forms to be prescription only.

Kenny Colston
About Kenny Colston

Kenny Colston is a political reporter for cn|2 Politics. Colston formerly served as editor of the Kentucky Kernel, the student-run newspaper at the University of Kentucky. You can reach him at kenny.colston@mycn2.com or 502-357-4255.

Comments

  • Bald Eagle wrote on December 14, 2011 06:54 PM :

    Meth labs doubled from what to what. Was it 100 to 200, 200 to 400? That is nothing compared to the pill epedemic grabbing this Commonwealth by the gonads and ripping communities apart.

    People don’t rob stores or ho,es to buy Meth, but they sure do for pills. People do not muder one another over a Mwth lab, but they will over Marijuana or Heroin. These drugs are causing much much more harm to the people of Kentucky than Meth ever will.

    Conway needs to focus 95% of his energy on the Pill problem in this state. Just read the headlines in this years State Journal in Frankfort. Huge pill busts in the Capital City. Read any newspaper in Eastern Ky. Pills are now coming not only from Florida and Georgia, they are now coming from Michigan to Kentucky.

  • Metagenics wrote on December 15, 2011 03:30 AM :

    While Chinese medicine may be considered “alternative” medicine in the West, it is an accepted form of conventional medicine in Eastern cultures – Chinese medicine colleges are trying to change this Western mode of thinking by researching, teaching and administering comprehensive training in this unique healing art.

    http://kavinace.tripod.com/

  • StopMethLabscom wrote on December 18, 2011 12:16 AM :

    Kentucky has proven the Nplex electronic tracking software backed by the pdeudo makers is not working.

    Kentucky’s meth labs have more than trip-piled since installing Nplex yet the drug lobby is still out there telling other states it’s the magic bullet.

    I wonder if that’s because they make about a billion dollars a year from the meth cook market alone.

    Prescriptions will stop the labs !

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