A day after Riverside County supervisors voted to crack down on methamphetamine producers, county officials said the measure as passed would not include a provision to require people who buy certain cold medicines to provide personal information to store clerks.
County lawyers said the county lacked legal authority to enforce such a requirement because only the state can regulate drug sales. The lawyers said they had removed that provision from a county ordinance before it was tentatively approved by supervisors Tuesday.
Copies of the ordinance made available to the media and public before the meeting included the provision. It would have required retailers and pharmacists selling nonprescription cold medicines containing the drug pseudoephedrine or related compounds to keep a log of buyers' names, addresses, phone numbers and driver's license numbers. That version of the ordinance remained on the county website through Wednesday morning.
After Tuesday's vote, the author of the ordinance, Supervisor Jeff Stone, said that under the measure he and his colleagues had approved, the ledgers of customers' personal information "would have to be kept by the establishment" so police could monitor who was buying large quantities of ingredients used to make methamphetamine.
"It will allow us to track down those who are obviously buying for reasons other than illness," Stone said.
On Wednesday, Stone said his comments on Tuesday night had been "theoretical" and that he had been aware of the changes made to the measure at the time he voted on it. The four other supervisors also said they had been informed of the amendments made to the ordinance before they voted. The supervisors conducted only a brief discussion of the measure before voting.
As amended, the ordinance would have no effect on shoppers or stores. It would only require convicted methamphetamine makers to pay for the cleanup of their hazardous labs and establish a county fund for rewards to tipsters who help with successful prosecution of meth producers.
Nevertheless, Riverside County's action prompted new calls among drug store industry groups for uniform national legislation on sales of cold medicines that include ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and other ingredients that can be used to make methamphetamine.
"What we would like to have is one standardized approach to selling pseudoephedrine products," said Mary Ann Wagner, vice president of pharmacy regulatory affairs for the National Assn. of Chain Drug Stores, based in northern Virginia. "It's just getting to be a patchwork of various regulations."
