U.S. Congressman Harold “Hal” Rogers (KY-05) announced his plans today to join State Legislators in Frankfort on Thursday, February 3, 2011 to discuss the need for new legislation to battle the methamphetamine epidemic in Kentucky. Rogers will testify before the Kentucky Senate Judiciary Committee at 10 a.m. followed by a rally in the Capitol Rotunda at 2:30 p.m in support of Senate Bill 45.

“Meth is saturating our state at an alarming rate in the form of injuries, deaths, criminal investigations, incarcerations, treatment and the crippling costs of dismantling hundreds of meth labs every year,” said Rogers. “The methods of the past are clearly not working. Law enforcement officials discovered more than 1,000 meth lab sites in Kentucky last year. We don’t want to continue finding more meth labs, we want to drastically reduce the manufacturing of meth. Operation UNITE has been a national model in investigations, treatment and education of drug abuse and I believe other states are looking to Kentucky to lead the way once more in the scourge of meth."

Senate Bill 45 is modeled after legislation passed in Oregon and Mississippi, requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine, the precursor for meth. In addition, the bill requires pseudoephedrine to be a schedule IV controlled substance, allowing it to be tracked by Kentucky’s All-Scheduled Prescription Electronic Reporting system (KASPER). The 9-gram limit for 30 days would remain in effect.

For details about the rally visit http://operationunite.org/2011/01/rally-to-support-pseudoephedrine-bill/.