The pharmacy industry Thursday came out against District legislation designed to toughen up laws surrounding the sale of pseudoephedrine, a chemical used in popular over-the-counter medications and in the production of methamphetamines.

CVS and Safeway representatives, as well as the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, said the bill goes too far by adding pseudoephedrine to the list of Schedule V drugs and forcing only pharmacists or pharmacy technicians to handle sales.

“These doctors of pharmacy are too valuable to be relegated to the status of cold medicine gatekeepers, a duty that requires barely more training or knowledge than clerks who sell cigarettes or alcohol,” Diane Darbey, an attorney with the association, said during a hearing of the judiciary committee.

The bill would limit the amount of pseudoephedrine that could be sold to a person at one time or over the course of a month, require distribution under the supervision of a pharmacist or pharmacy technician, and demand identification and a signature from the customer.

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Federal laws already limit pseudoephedrine sales and require a pharmacy to log all customers’ purchases of the chemical, found in such popular medications as Sudafed, Contac and Claritin. The pharmacy representatives said the District should simply mirror the federal statutes, which are less restrictive.

No one who testified during the hearing favored the bill as written.

David Rubenstein, deputy attorney general, said the administration backs the ideas within the bill — with several minor amendments — but said most of the changes should be implemented by the mayor as a rule in the District’s municipal regulations, rather than through statute. That way, he said, the rule can be changed “quickly if necessary to respond to changes in the pattern of drug abuse.”

Rubenstein said pseudoephedrine must be better controlled so that the District doesn’t become a shopping destination for methamphetamine producers.

Council Member Phil Mendelson, chairman of the judiciary committee, said it appeared the mayor “can do everything that’s in the bill without the council doing anything,” except minor changes to the criminal code.

mneibauer@dcexaminer.com