Officials in Pittsburg are weighing whether to join other southeast Kansas and southwest Missouri communities in requiring prescriptions for a key ingredient in methamphetamine.
The Morning Sun reports Pittsburg Police Chief Mendy Hulvey is pushing an ordinance that would make a decongestant called pseudoephedrine available only by prescription.
Hulvey told city commissioners at a recent study session that Pittsburg is an “island” amid communities that allow over-the-counter sales of the popular cold and allergy medicine.
Those that have already adopted prescription-only ordinances include Joplin, Springfield and Branson, Missouri; and Chanute, Girard, Arma, Iola, Baxter Springs and Fort Scott plus Cherokee County in Kansas.
Hulvey says she’s not interested in pursuing low-level meth makers, but mid-level producers who obtain large quantities of pseudoephedrine, often with straw buyers commonly called “smurfs.”
