By The Associated Press, USA Today

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Law enforcement officials and other groups in Mississippi are lobbying lawmakers to require a prescription to buy cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine — a key ingredient in methamphetamine — as the state’s drug problem reaches unprecedented levels.

Last year marked the first time meth arrests outnumbered those for crack and powder cocaine, 981 to 608, said Marshall Fisher, a former Drug Enforcement Administrationagent who now heads the Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics.

An organization representing drug makers says similar legislation has been introduced in Georgia, Missouri and Washington. Oregon became the first in the nation to pass such a law in 2006, where the number of meth labs busted dropped from 473 to 20 in the first year, Fisher said. Some municipalities in Missouri have adopted similar ordinances for medicines such as Claritin-D and Sudafed.

The pharmaceutical industry has responded with a proposal to create a real-time electronic system that would let law officers track all sales of pseudoephedrine. In fact, opposition to the prescription proposal is so strong the industry has offered to pay for the systems in states with serious meth lab problems.

Many states already require the medicines be held behind pharmacy counters, and photo identification is needed for purchases so the buyer’s information can be logged into a database.

Such systems are already in place in Oklahoma, Kentucky and Arkansas, said Mandy Hagan, director of state government relations for Consumer Healthcare Products Association, a group that represents makers of over-the-counter medicines.