[WASHINGTON, DC] – The U.S. Senate today unanimously passed the Methamphetamine Production Prevention Act, introduced by Senators Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA). This legislation makes it easier for pharmacies to use electronic logbook systems to monitor sales of meth precursor chemicals and identify individuals who are illegally stockpiling those chemicals. The legislation will now go to the House of Representatives and if approved, will go to the President for his signature.

Certain chemicals that are necessary to produce methamphetamine are readily available in household products or over-the-counter cold or allergy medicines. Current law restricts the amount of these products that can be purchased at one time by a single person. Some meth producershave been able to get around restrictions by "smurfing" – purchasing illegal amounts of meth precursor products by traveling to multiple pharmacies and buying smallquantities at each.

"Today's legislation will make it easier for law enforcement to put in place abettermethod of tracking purchases of illegal amounts of methprecursor drugs," said Durbin. "Ninety percent of the pseudoephedrine used to make meth in Illinoisis obtainedthrough illegally large purchases of over-the-counter drug products. Pharmacies using electronic logbook systemswill make it much easier to catch those who stockpile these drugs to make meth. I urge the House of Representatives to swiftly take up and pass this bill."

"The electronic logbooks will be a great help to local law enforcement and businesses so they can better track and arrest those providing false information or going store to store, city to city, or even state to state in order to get meth ingredients," Grassley said. "This drug has had a devastating impact on families across Iowa and it's important to give people at the grassroots the tools they need to keep our communities free of meth and its terrible effects."

"This important legislation would become a crucial component to a national strategy that will help eliminate the source of domestic methamphetamine production," said Ron Brooks, President of the National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition. "By revising logbook requirements to facilitate the use of electronic logs, this legislation will provide states with the tools they need to assist them in the fight against meth production."

Today's legislation revises the technical logbook requirements found in the federal Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act ("Combat Meth Act"). Enacted in 2006, the Combat Meth Act limits the amount of meth precursor drugs – such as pseudoephedrine – that a customer can buy and requires pharmacies to keep written or electronic logbooks recording each purchase of the drugs. This approach has led to a drop in the number of meth labs discovered in many states; however, meth producers are adapting to the current restrictions by "smurfing" or travelling to multiple pharmacies that keep logbooks in paper form and buying legal quantities of precursors at each one.

The Durbin-Grassley bill would change the Combat Meth Act to facilitate the use of electronic logbooks instead of written logbooks. For instance, the bill would revise the Act's purchaser signature requirement to allow signatures to be obtained and stored on paper when the rest of the logbook information is captured electronically. This would make electronic logbook systems far more cost-effective without hurting law enforcement efforts. The bill would also allow for the use of bar code reader technology, and would revise the current requirement that each purchaser "enter" his or her name and address into a logbook so that retailers can type in the information electronically.

The legislation has been endorsed by numerous organizations, including the National Narcotics Officers' Associations' Coalition, the National Criminal Justice Association, the National Sheriffs' Association, the National District Attorneys Association, the Consumer Healthcare Products Association and the National Association of Chain Drug Stores.