Going too far — 12/13/12 » Editorials » Daily Independent (Ashland, KY)

Editorials

Discussion

December 11, 2009

Going too far — 12/13/12

Further restrictions on sale of cold remedies is not necessar

Anonymous The Daily Independent Fri Dec 11, 2009, 03:51 PM EST

A legislative proposal by the Kentucky Narcotic Officers’ Association goes too far by attempting to require prescriptions for effective cold remedies now available over the counter.

The intentions of the drug enforcement officers who make up the statewide organization are good, but good intentions also can have unintentional consequences. The drug enforcement officers say requiring a prescription to purchase all cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine would reduce the production of methamphetamine in Kentucky.

Currently, medications containing pseudoephedrine are kept behind the counter, but a prescription is not necessary to purchase them. Instead, Kentucky uses an electronic tracking system for pseudoephedrine sales at pharmacies, with a limit of 9 grams a person over a 30-day period.

The law that took the cold remedies off the shelf and placed them behind the counter has been credited with greatly reducing the number of meth labs in the state. While meth labs still exist in Kentucky, the prescription drug epidemic has become a far more serious problem than meth in this region.

Requiring prescriptions to purchase cold remedies with pseudoephedrine may further reduce the number of meth labs in Kentucky, but it also would require those who would benefit most from the cold medications to first visit a doctor to get a prescription. That not only would increase the cost of the medication, but it also could reduce the effectiveness of it.

Our observation is that many of the cold remedies work best when taken when the first symptoms of a cold are detected. By being taken in the early stages of a cold, taking the common cold remedies can eliminate the necessity of a doctor’s visit.

We recognize that the pseudoephedrine found in common cold remedies is used by the unscrupulous to produce meth, but the vast majority of people who purchase the remedies do so for legitimate reasons. The current restrictions on the sale of medications with pseudoephedrine are adequate. They need not be expanded.

Text Only

Editorials

Charles Chattin
Before it merged with Ashland Community College to form Ashland Community and Technical College as a result of the 1997 Higher Education Reform Act, the Ashland Area Vocational-Technical School compiled an impressive record for teaching job skills to young adults and placing more than 85 percent in jobs for which they were trained.

February 10, 2012
Try again
It is time for Kentucky Speaker of the House Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, and Senate President David Williams, R-Burkesville, to cease playing political games and redraw district lines that are compact and are based far more on population changes during the first decade of this century than on partisan politics.

February 9, 2012
'Asset poor'
More than one in four Kentucky households are “asset poor,” meaning that they are living from paycheck to paycheck with little or no financial cushion to fall back on should they suddenly lose their jobs or have another emergency resulting in a temporary loss of or delcine in income.

February 7, 2012
Safer mines
The head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) says coal operators throughout the country are improving their operations and, as a result, mines are becoming safer. However, MSHA chief Joe Main said too many coal operators still “don’t get it” and are continuing to cut costs by ignoring safety. That’s why MSHA plans to continue targeting mines with a history of repeated violations for additional inspections.

February 7, 2012
Not far enough
For the past three sessions of the Kentucky General Assembly, bills that would raise the minimum dropout age from 16 to 18 have been approved by the Kentucky House of Representatives by wide bipartisan margins only to die in the Senate without even a vote.
Now the Senate Education Committee has unanimously approved a dropout bill hailed as an alternative to the House bill, but it does not go nearly far enough. It is a halfway measure that would have only a limited effect on preventing teenagers from quitting high school before graduation and virtually assuring themselves of lives on the lowest rungs of the economic ladder.

February 6, 2012
Not their job
The local government committee of the Kentucky House of Representatives has wisely killed a bill — dubbed “Cooper’s Law” — that would have allowed the family of the Lexington toddler with cerebral palsy to have a playhouse on their property despite a deed restriction that apparently prohibits such structures.

February 6, 2012
Keeping FADE
Despite an increase in cost to the department, Carter County Sheriff Casey Brammell told the Carter County Fiscal Court that his department will continue to be active in the FIVCO Area Development Drug Enforcement (FADE) Task Force — at least for now.

February 4, 2012
Needed changes
The soaring enrollment that Kentucky’s community and technical colleges have experienced in recent years could come to a sudden end — or at least be slowed — as about 5,500 students in the statewide system that includes Ashalnd Community and Technical College are expected to lose their financial aid under new rules being implemented by the federal government.

February 3, 2012
Released early
While it is disappointing that 75 of the 952 prisoners granted early release in January have violated the terms of their releases, the good news is that none of the former inmates have been charged with new felonies. That’s an early, but positive, indication that the nonviolent felons released before their sentences were up have been carefully selected and are among those least likely to return to a life of crime.

February 2, 2012
Obese children
Almost a decade after former Gov. Ernie Fletcher called childhood obesity an “epidemic” in Kentucky, a majority of Kentucky adults still think that there are too many overweight children in the state and they place the bulk of the blame squarely on the shoulders of their parents.

February 1, 2012
More Editorials Headlines

Editorials

Search Results

Discussion

Going too far — 12/13/12

Further restrictions on sale of cold remedies is not necessar

Site Map

Contact Us