Pseudoephedrine sales down after law

WASHINGTON, Mo., Oct. 26 (UPI) -- An ordinance in Washington, Mo., requiring prescriptions to purchase decongestants containing pseudoephedrine has resulted in plummeting sales, officials say.

Local authorities say the figures are good news because pseudoephedrine is a key ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine, the St. Louis (Mo.) Post-Dispatch reported Monday.

"We just thought it was the right thing to do, but if it's doing what the numbers show, that's really encouraging," Washington Mayor Dick Stratman told the newspaper.

The Franklin County Sheriff's Department said sales of the select cold and allergy products among Washington's stores have fallen by an average of 92.9 percent in the three months since law came into force on July 7. Washington's five commercial pharmacies sold about 4,400 boxes of the decongestant in the three months before the ban, but moved on 310 boxes in the three months following it, the newspaper said.

But local pharmacists told the Post-Dispatch their lost sales were not made up for by sales of alternative products. A spokesman for one of them described sales increases of alternative products as "slight."