579.060. Unlawful sale, distribution, or purchase of over-the-counter methamphetamine precursor drugs — violation, penalty.
It’s illegal to buy or sell too much cold medicine with certain ingredients unless you have a prescription.
This law sets limits on how much medicine containing ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, or phenylpropanolamine you can buy or sell without a prescription. It also explains what sellers and pharmacists must do to follow the rules.
1. A person breaks the law if they knowingly:
- (1) Sell or give more than 7.2 grams of products with these ingredients to the same person in 30 days without a prescription.
- (2) Buy or get more than 7.2 grams of these products in 30 days without a prescription, no matter how many times they buy them.
- (3) Buy or get more than 3.6 grams of these products in one day without a prescription.
- (4) Sell or give more than 43.2 grams of these products to the same person in 12 months without a prescription.
- (5) Buy or get more than 43.2 grams in 12 months without a prescription.
- (6) Sell these drugs without keeping them behind the pharmacy counter and without a pharmacist or pharmacy tech giving them out.
- (7) Sell packages that don’t follow required packaging rules if they have a retail license.
2. A pharmacist, intern pharmacist, or pharmacy tech also breaks the law if they knowingly:
- (1) Sell more than 3.6 grams of these drugs to the same person in 24 hours without a prescription.
- (2) Don’t report sales of these drugs as required by state law.
- (3) Don’t keep an electronic log of sales of these drugs.
- (4) Sell these drugs to someone under 18 without a prescription.
3. If a store owner can prove they trained their workers about the laws and one of them broke the packaging rules, the owner won’t be punished.
4. Breaking this law is a class A misdemeanor.
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