WASHINGTON — After intense negotiations with grocery stores, drug makers, and law enforcement officials, Sens. Jim Talent and Dianne Feinstein unveiled a new version of legislation to restrict the sale of over-the-counter cold
medications.

The bill aims to crack down on illicit purchases of Sudafed and other cold remedies that contain pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in the deadly narcotic methamphetamine.

In a revamped bill, Talent, R-Mo., and Feinstein, D-Calif., made strategic concessions to drug-makers and grocery stores, including Safeway Inc., to temper stiff opposition from those industries and smooth the road to passage.

The two senators, who first introduced the bill in January, said their latest proposal was a strong compromise that would help stamp out the meth scourge and had a good chance for passage.

The new bill strikes a “good balance” and will help law enforcement “get ahead of the meth cooks … so they’re not in our neighborhoods and not affecting our kids,” Talent said.

The most contentious element of the bill would require retailers to put Sudafed and similar products behind a pharmacy counter, where consumers would have to sign a log and show an ID before buying them. That information would be put into a database to help law enforcement track large purchases of the drug.

Customers would be limited to buying 7.5 grams, about 250 tablets, of such products per month, a smaller amount than the 9 grams in the January bill.

The new legislation includes two crucial changes that helped secured the backing of one industry, food retailers, and may assuage another,
over-the-counter drug companies.

After consultations with grocery store lobbyists, Talent and Feinstein included a provision that would allow states to set up a non-pharmacy selling option for retail outlets without an on-site drugist.

Under this provision, a state legislature would have to create a special licensing system for non-pharmacists to sell pseudoephedrine products. The Drug Enforcement Agency would have to approve each state’s system.

“This is what we call the Safeway exception,” Feinstein said. Safeway is a California-based grocery store chain and its lobbyists worked closely with Feinstein and Talent’s offices on the legislation, as did the Food Marketing Institute, the retail food industry’s lobbying arm.

FMI’s top lobbyist, John Motley, had expressed major reservations about the first draft of the bill because he said it would limit consumer access to a legal product. On Tuesday, FMI and Safeway were among a half-dozen business interests endorsing the bill.

Talent said the provision would ease concerns about access to cold medications for rural consumers who don’t live near a pharmacy.

“There are areas where the major food mart at the exit ramp is the [only retail outlet] for everybody within ten or 15 miles,” he said.

A second change in the bill would leave dozens of cold medicines on store shelves until January 2007.

Under the proposal, about 15 so-called “single-ingredient” products that have pseudoephedrine as their main component, such as Sudafed and Contac, would go behind pharmacy counters 90 days after the bill is passed. “Multi-ingredient” products that include pseudoephedrine with other medicines, such as Tylenol Cold and Flu or Advil Cold and Sinus, would remain on retail shelves until 2007.

Several drug companies are working now to reformulate their cold medicines without using pseudoephedrine; this provision means if they do so before 2007, they can avoid the new restrictions entirely.

Talent said they included this delay because otherwise the bill could have faced stiff resistance from lawmakers representing states where meth isn’t a big problem yet.

He acknowledged that meth makers would likely switch to the multi-ingredient products—and in some states, they already have. But without that provision, there “might be some problems with consumer acceptance and with senators’ acceptance,” Talent said.

Detective Jason Grellner, commander of the Franklin County narcotics unit, said he would have rather seen a bill with no exceptions. But he didn’t think these changes would significantly undercut the proposal.

“It’ll mean a slow down but not a complete stop of meth labs until 2007,” Grellner said of the 2007 implementation date.

Grellner also noted part of the bill is more stringent than a similar proposal recently signed by Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt. That state law, set to go into effect July 15th, exempts liquid and gel cap versions of the cold medicines, while Talent and Feinstein’s bill does not. (A proposal restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine in Illinois died earlier this year.)

With a Senate Judiciary Committee vote on the bill scheduled for Thursday, Talent said he would work to get a full Senate vote soon. Rep. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., has sponsored a similar bill in the House.

Feinstein, who has long battled the drug industry on this issue, said although prospects for passage were good, obstacles remain.

“The pharmaceutical industry always lobbies behind the scenes, so you never know what hit you until your down,” Feinstein said.