[mysterio]

You are a public defender? Then you should know first hand what this idiotic war on drugs has done to the Bill of Rights. How in the world could you defend any escalation of it? The WOD has failed miserably, and most of the costs you outlined in your post could be eliminated by not prosecuting addicts.

[TKDietz]

I hear what you are saying. But I don't look at requiring psuedoephedrine to be sold behind the counter as an escalation in the war on drugs. In fact, I think it would deescalate it some. We wouldn't have nearly as many busted for taking part in cooking dope. Look, we get a few of these cases every week in the small county where I work, and most of these people end up getting sent to prison for several years. If there were a lot less meth labs, there would be less people getting sent up for so many years.

The worst part about the drug war the way it's being fought is that we are spending a ton of money, locking a lot of people up, and diminishing protections guaranteed to us in our Constitution all for such meager returns, if anything positive is coming out of it. Restricting psuedoephedrine sales to pharmacies only and requiring that it be kept behind the counter is something that we could do that would produce measurable results without costing us a fortune or causing unfair results like the drug war causes. It just makes sense to do this. In the long run it seems like it would save a lot of money and misery, and the only downside is that it might be a minor inconvenience to legitimate psuedoephedrine consumers.