Lawmakers revise anti-meth measure

CARSON CITY -- Legislators and Nevada's attorney general, backed by retail and police representatives, moved Saturday to replace a rejected anti-methamphetamine measure with a new proposal to limit sales of legal products that can be used by meth manufacturers.

The move follows opposition on Tuesday from most Assembly Republicans to another anti-meth bill, AB150, that resulted in that measure failing.

The new plan involves AB148, an Assembly-approved measure revised in the state Senate. When it returned to the Assembly on Saturday for concurrence in the change, the lower house refused to go along. That will enable the new plan to be inserted in AB148 during a Senate-Assembly conference next week.

Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto said the revision will limit the sale of decongestants or other cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, which can be used to increase meth's potency, to pharmacies.

The medicines wouldn't require a prescription, but buyers would have to sign a log book. And local police would have access to the sales records, which pharmacies already maintain for federal authorities.

The earlier measure included a fee for convenience stores to register to sell such medicines, but now those stores wouldn't be able to conduct such sales and there's no fees.

Frank Adams of the Nevada Sheriffs and Chiefs Association and Tracy Woods of the Retail Association of Nevada joined Cortez Masto and Assembly members Bernie Anderson and Sheila Leslie, both Reno Democrats, in supporting the changes to AB148.