Repeal Cough Medicine Control Laws!

Okay, so I call in sick yesterday because I woke up feeling awful. Stuffy/runny nose. Muscle aches, fever, chills, headache. I took a couple of Advil, but still don't feel well enough to drive an hour to the office.

Later, in the afternoon, I feel well enough to go to the drugstore to get some cold medicine. Pop into Rite-Aid and grab a box of Drixoral (which works very well for my congestion/sinus issues). I also grab a couple of boxes of Triaminic Soft-Chews, because my son is very congested too and they work well for him.

When I get to the register, the computer flags my purchase somehow, and the cashier informs me that I can't buy all three items. Huh? It really wasn't registering with me. In my weakened state, I thought that I didn't have enough cash, or my card was being rejected. But I hadn't tendered any cash or attempted to use my card, so how could the cashier know what I could afford? I asked for a clarification.

The cashier told me that I could by any two of the items I wanted, but not all three. Why? Federal Law. Federal Law dictates how mcuh cold medicine I can buy for me and my family? I ask to speak to a manager.

Manager confirms - they can't sell me all three items. Apparently the active ingredient in my chosen medicines (Pseudoephedrine HCL) can be used to manufacture methamphetamine or some such. So Federal law limits how much I can buy.

Flabbergasted and defeated, I buy the Drixoral and ONE box of Triaminic. I took my purchases to my car, then walked into the grocery store next to Rite-Aid and bought another Triaminic.

"Thanks for your perspective on this. I can understand that Oklahoma's law might discourage people from starting up as meth addicts or manufacturers. But would it discourage the the hard core folks? If the source of meth dries up, will the addiction just wear off? Or will addicts seek another source and more violence means of satisfying their addiciton?"

Don't get me wrong on this. This would not dry up the supply of meth. Most of the meth on the market is produced in Mexico or in huge labs out west. Most of the stuff produced in all of these thousands of little kitchen meth labs being busted across the country is being used by the people cooking the dope and their little helpers. If all of the little kitchen meth labs went away, there would still be plenty of supply from the big labs. Hardcore addicts who are cooking dope now or helping others do it to get their supply would have to either cut down or quit, or they'd have to start selling dope or stealing to pay for dope.

The way cutting out most of the little kitchen labs would cut down on addiction is that it would help prevent a lot of people from becoming addicted in the first place. What happens with these little kitchen type labs is that there are almost always several people getting free or super cheap meth out of the deal. For instance, often the guy who is cooking doesn't have a place to cook, so he'll talk someone into letting him use their house and in return will give them and whoever else lives there meth. The neighbor who pops in after smelling the cook going on is also liable to get free meth in exchange for his promise to keep his mouth shut. Then there are the people who help gather the supplies. There are all sorts of supplies needed to cook meth. These vary depending on the method used to convert the psuedo into methamphetamine, but however it's done lots of various chemicals are needed and in many cases these chemicals are controlled or at least watched by the authorities. For instance, anhydrous ammonia can be difficult to come by, as can be iodine crystals. Other common items used in the manufacture of meth are watched by retailers who sell them. The meth cook can't really just pop on down to WalMart and load his cart with everything he'll need for the cook, so he'll send others out to steal it or make small purchases at this store and that store. All of these people are going to get free dope out of the deal.

What you end up with is a bunch of people hanging around where the dope is being cooked doing huge quantities of it for days and days on end. A lot of these people wouldn't have been able to do that if they weren't getting the dope basically for free. They'd have had to buy it and in many cases wouldn't have been able to buy it and use it enough to become addicted. They might have fooled around with it a little, but like most they would have grown out of that phase in their lives without ever having become actual drug addicts.

Aside from this, there are other benefits to reducing the number of meth labs. Meth labs are messy, dangerous operations. They do produce toxic waste. The chemicals and vapors are harmful to those around them, and unfortunately it is not exactly uncommon for people who cook the stuff to do it in the home while their children are there. They've done several studies on children in the homes of meth cooks and most of these kids will test positive for meth and have high levels of dangerous chemicals in their blood. This is mostly from vapors and coming into contact with contaminated items.

Meth labs are also dangerous. These things can blow up, and they often do. And unfortunately, meth is often cooked in apartment buildings and hotels. Most of the people involved with cooking dope that I come across aren't exactly flush with cash. They'll cook it anywhere they can find a power source for their hotplates. Cooking in a motel or apartment is stupid because there is a good chance neighbors will smell it and turn you in, but these junkies aren't the most rational bunch. And there is a big danger that they are going to start a fire that kills or seriously injures a lot of innocent people.

Overall, we'd be better off without all the little meth labs, even if people will just buy meth coming from big labs somewhere else. I think we would see fewer people becoming hardcore addicts because fewer people would have easy access to enough meth to become addicted. Those who are already hardcore addicts who now cook up their own supply or help others do it would not just stop being addicts. Some would probably quit if they couldn't get it cheap or free. Many would switch to just selling dope, but instead of providing free or dirt cheap meth to people they'd be charging full price so less people would be able to do enough to become addicted. That won't make a difference in the local drug supply because most were already selling a little and there are already plenty of people out there selling dope such that no one has any trouble finding it as it is.

Some others would start stealing to support their habits. That is true and that is a problem, but the good thing about that is that stealing is much riskier than selling dope for the people who do it and most end up getting caught. Then we can deal with them and hopefully get some of them off the drugs through programs like the drug court we run in our county. Some of these programs don't work worth a flip, but ours seems to be helping a lot. What's happening out there today is that states and counties are trying different methods to help get people off of drugs and they are learning from each other what works and what doesn't work.

As for violence to get meth, I'm sure it happens but we don't really see it where I live much at all even though we have a bad meth problem around here. Mostly what we see are meth labs, dealing, and property crimes where people steal, write hot checks or forge checks, and so on. And most of that activity is coming from a core group of hardcore addicts. Some will steal, others will just deal, but we keep seeing these same folks in our courts over and over again. Some of them end up going down for a long time, others need to go down for a long time (especially the thieves), but a lot of these folks could get off the drugs with a little carrot and stick help and hopefully that will start reducing the costs we are spending arresting and incarcerating so many of these people over and over again.

My theory is that the meth problem will eventually subside somewhat and become more manageable as has happened with crack cocaine. I look at a lot of statistics and what we are already seeing is that less and less younger people are trying meth, especially in urban centers, but that trend is moving to rural areas. In urban centers, even adult use has even been going down. Overall use has been going up in more rural and small town America though. The crack epidemic of the 1980's followed a fairly similar pattern, but it hit mostly black communities while meth is now hitting whites harder. What happened with crack is that over the years you saw less and less young people doing the drug. The highest concentration of users are older blacks (late twenties through early forties) who probably started in the 1980's when crack use hit its peak. Younger blacks now use it at a much lower rate, even than whites in the same age demographic. My guess is that the younger people saw how badly crack ravaged the older people in their communities and they didn't want any of that.

I am seeing something similar going on with the young people I deal with in juvenile court. Less are using meth than before and many talk about people in their families and people they know who have become addicted and ruined their lives with the stuff and they don't want any part of it. I think use and consequently the number of new addicts will start going down but we are going to have to deal with the people who are still left with addictions.

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