A dominant issue during this year's legislative session was whether legislation was needed requiring a prescription in order to purchase products containing pseudoephedrine, and whether such a law would stop criminals from using it to make the drug methamphetamine.

The Bluegrass Institute opposed this draconian proposal.

Forcing people with the cold or flu to go to a doctor’s office and wait for authorization to get medicine in hopes of stopping meth production is government overkill.

A majority of legislators agreed and instead chose to limit the amount of pseudoephedrine individuals can purchase in a single month or year without a doctor's prescription.

Nearly two months later the debate has resurfaced.

A Lexington Herald-Leader editorial bashes $486,053 spent by the Consumer Healthcare Products Association to stop SB3 while attempting to portray the CHPA as sinister lobbyists.

Still, it cannot change the facts. In his balanced, factual response to the H-L editorial, CHPA president Scott Melville points out the common sense reasons his organization opposed the law:

* Kentuckians -- 6,700 by mail, 12,000 on Facebook -- oppose requiring prescriptions for cold and flu medicine

* Only 2 percent of pseudoephedrine sold in Kentucky is used for meth according to the Legislative Research Commission -- a far cry from “a huge portion.”

* Kentucky already has effective laws barring previous meth offenders from pseudoephedrine, and a system to track pseudoephedrine purchases.

The facts reveal that forcing law-abiding Kentuckians to obtain a prescription just to purchase a box of Sudafed would have been unnecessarily strict and abusive to our freedoms.