House OKs controls on drug

BOISE – Idaho’s doctors, nurses and pharmacists have been imploring lawmakers for years to put stricter controls on the popular prescription muscle relaxant Soma, but fervent lobbying by the drug’s New Jersey-based manufacturer has stopped the legislation each time.

But on Tuesday, the House voted 37-31 to list the drug, known generically as carisoprodol, as a Schedule IV drug, similar to Valium and other tranquilizers. Currently, it’s not on any schedule so it’s treated the same as antibiotics and blood pressure medication – though physicians around the state say it’s a powerful tranquilizer that’s often abused and sometimes used as a “date-rape” drug.

“We were given ample testimony … that carisoprodol is being significantly abused in Idaho,” Rep. Bob Ring, R-Caldwell, a retired physician, told the House. “Medicaid has removed it from the approved drug list because of abuse.”

Classifying Soma as a Schedule IV drug wouldn’t stop it from being prescribed. It would merely limit refills without a doctor’s permission to five times or six months, and require reporting of its use to the Board of Pharmacy. At least 13 other states – including Oregon, Arizona and New Mexico – have classified the drug as Schedule IV, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, though the U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn’t made a ruling.

The drug’s manufacturer, Medpointe Pharmaceuticals, of Somerset, N.J., is represented by one of the most influential lobbyists in the state, former state Sen. Skip Smyser. Smyser didn’t return a reporter’s calls for comment after the House vote.

“He is a very effective lobbyist, and this time I just think he’s on the wrong side of the issue,” said Rep. John Rusche, R-Lewiston, a physician.

“When we had the testimony in the committee, there was a whole array of practitioners and citizens in favor,” Rusche said. “A lawyer, a medical director for the manufacturer and the lobbyist were the only ones who opposed it.”

But in the House debate, Rep. Tom Loertscher, R-Iona, tried to get the bill sent back to committee without a vote, saying its opponents hadn’t gotten enough time to offer information in the committee hearing. His motion, opposed by many representatives as an attack on the House committee system, died on a 20-48 vote.

House Health and Welfare Committee Chair Rep. Sharon Block, R-Idaho Falls, countered that the committee hearing was fair. “Everybody had the same time to speak, and a vote was taken,” she said.

Loertscher told the House that no one would abuse Soma. “Nobody takes a drug for a tranquilizing effect if you’re going to abuse drugs. They don’t want to take it to go to sleep, they want to take it to get a buzz out of it. You don’t get a buzz out of this drug,” he said.

But backers of the bill, which is supported by an array of medical groups, said the drug indeed has been abused.

Commonly prescribed to ease lower back pain, carisoprodol can be habit-forming and also is commonly prescribed along with narcotic pain relievers, whose effect it multiplies, Ring told the House.

Rep. Margaret Henbest, D-Boise, a nurse, said national studies estimate more than 2 million people age 12 and over have used the drug illegally. It is sold widely on the Internet. “We’re tightening up our ability to monitor its abuse,” she said.

Rep. Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls, spoke out against the bill. “We were shown a graph in committee … (showing the) potential for abuse … is less than for other common drugs such as Tylenol and ibuprofen,” she told the House.

Rep. Bill Sali, R-Meridian, said, “Ibuprofen and Tylenol rank much higher in the terms of the number of reports that they get from the emergency room, much higher than carisoprodol.”

Rusche said the drug’s manufacturer touted a chart showing there were more deaths from Tylenol than from carisoprodol. “Well, yeah, but there’s a heck of a lot more people with access to using Tylenol,” he said. “Unfortunately, many of my colleagues are not trained in scientific evaluation.”

Similar legislation has been proposed five times in eight years. In 1998 it passed the House 59-6 but died in the Senate after then-Sen. Jack Riggs, R-Coeur d’Alene, a physician, told the Senate it was no more dangerous than Tylenol.

Four subsequent bills died in committee in the House. Last year’s bill was referred from the Health and Welfare Committee to the leadership-controlled Ways and Means Committee, where it died without a hearing.

Henbest said vigorous lobbying played a major role in killing previous versions of the bill.

Rep. Eric Anderson, R-Priest Lake, who voted against the bill, said, “I didn’t agree that it needed to be Class IV. I don’t know much about it.”

Rep. Bob Nonini, R-Coeur d’Alene, also voted “no.” He said he was persuaded by the debate.

The bill now moves to the Senate.