Soma-control bill fails to get hearing

BOISE – Legislation to put stricter controls on the popular prescription muscle relaxant Soma has died without a hearing in a Senate committee.

Senate Health and Welfare Chairman Dick Compton, R-Coeur d’Alene, said he couldn’t get a hearing scheduled at a time when representatives of the drug’s New Jersey-based manufacturer could make it.

“I’m just trying to be fair – I had to give ‘em a few days notice,” Compton said. “We’re kinda running out of time.” He added, “This thing has been bouncing around for five years, so it’s not an emergency.”

Idaho doctors, nurses and pharmacists have been pleading with lawmakers for years to classify the drug, known generically as carisoprodol, as a Schedule IV drug in Idaho because of widespread abuse.

“This is an abused drug and I think it should be classified,” said Rep. Bob Ring, R-Caldwell, a retired physician and the bill’s lead sponsor. “For whatever reason it’s dead for this year, so I’ll be bringing it back again. It was one of the first 10 bills introduced this session.”

Vigorous lobbying by the drug’s manufacturer, Medpointe Pharmaceuticals of Somerset, N.J., has stopped the bill five times in the past eight years. The firm is represented by prominent Idaho lobbyist Skip Smyser, a former state senator who represents an array of clients.

Smyser declined to comment on the killing of the bill, which passed the House on a 37-31 vote on March 14. But a day after the House vote, he said he wasn’t giving up.

Medpointe officials in New Jersey didn’t return a reporter’s calls.

Ring said Soma has been abused so much in Idaho that Medicaid has taken it off its approved drug list.

The drug, which is widely sold on the Internet, has a powerful tranquilizing effect and often is taken in combination with narcotic pain relievers, because it magnifies their effect. According to a U.S. Department of Justice publication about the drug, abusers commonly refer to the combination of Soma and Vicodin as a “Las Vegas Cocktail” and claim it has effects similar to heroin. It also has been used as a date-rape drug.

At least 13 states, including Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico, now list the drug as a Schedule IV drug, which means it still can be prescribed, but a doctor’s OK is required for more than five refills or after more than six months. It also means the Board of Pharmacy tracks the drug for possible abuse.

Ring said, “The Medpointe Pharmaceutical company in New Jersey is opposed to it because they think they may lose some sales if it’s listed. They tell (lawmakers) … that, ‘oh, this is not an abused drug at all.’ Out in the field, the doctors and pharmacists perceive that it’s being abused.”