As meds-for-meth bill dies, backer asks colleagues to find solution

The bill that would have required prescriptions for three popular decongestants used to make methamphetamine "was buried today, but not without a eulogy and a promise to resurrect it," Renee Shaw reported for Kentucky Educational Television.

KET's coverage was highlighted by parts of a floor speech from the bill's sponsor, Sen. Tom Jensen, R-London, who challenged his colleagues to come up with a solution to the meds-for-meth problem. "We're waiting for something very terrible to happen by not acting on this," he said. Holding out the prospects of wrecks, fires, explosions and other accidents meth makers could cause, he warned, "A tragedy's gonna happen here and then we're all really gonna feel bad."

Shaw noted that lobbies opposing the bill had creating "polarizing publicity" with radio and full-page newspaper advertising. A Senate committee approved the bill on a bipartisan 6-4 vote early last month but the measure never attracted enough support to gain a vote in the full Senate.

"If my solution is not the answer, figure out a way," Jensen pleaded. In another floor speech, Sen. Joey Pendleton, D-Hopkinsville, thanked Jensen for his work and said, "We have a tremendous problem here . . . I'm like him. Tell us what we need to do."