Hands-Off Our Runny Nose: Meth & Cold Medicine Link

CNS News ^ | March 28, 2005 | Kerri Houston

[weekendwarrior]

Hands-Off Our Runny Noses By Kerri Houston CNSNews.com Commentary March 28, 2005

Good intentions by politicians have been known to inflict collateral damage on innocent bystanders as legislative overreach often causes problems for taxpayers, consumers or other subgroups of the citizenry.

Responding to a recent increase in methamphetamine use and production, the currently elected would like to legislate criminals out of business by passing laws that place common cold remedies out of the reach of non-criminal consumers.

Legislators, both state and federal, are fishing for the guilty in a sea of the innocent.

Meth is a highly addictive and dangerous substance whose manufacture and use places its addicts and the community in peril, and state and federal law enforcement have ramped up efforts to curtail production by successfully identifying and closing meth labs.

Approximately 80% of meth is produced by "super-labs" predominantly in California and along southern border states. Many are operated by Mexican criminal gangs whose extensive trafficking network supplies super-labs with ingredients needed to "cook" the meth.

But about 20% of meth is produced by small "Mom and Pop" labs found primarily in rural areas. Recipes are easy to find, and ingredients include common household items such as camping fuel, drain cleaner, and pseudophedrine (PSE), a decongestant in over-the-counter cold and allergy remedies. Although local and federal law enforcement and state legislatures have been aggressively targeting meth, federal legislators have now come at the problem with pencils drawn, and drafted the Senate and House Combat Meth Act of 2005.

[Skooz]

If you want to see what it does to people, see "Requium For A Dream"

I don't have to. I lived it.

[Quilla]

That's big dumb government for you.

No kidding. As SCR posted above, what's to keep folks from stopping at every store in town. Apparently, the meth making business is booming in our relatively rural Alabama area. Almost daily you can find an article on a lab blowing up here or a motel room catching fire there - obviously not rocket scientists.

[Uncle Miltie]

As an occassional Sudafed user in a Methamphetamine aflicted State (ND), I recommend taking pseudoephedrine off the market.

I can suffer a few sniffles if it saves a few thousand lives.

[Quilla]

Years and years ago, we used to buy several dozen Vicks Inhalers and cook them in a frying pan to make "bathtub crystal."

Glad you're still with us.

[Skooz]

Only by the grace of God.

Really.

Thanks.

[MamaTexan]

News about efforts to stop meth production by taking away access to cold medicine. Worth a look.

Oh, pul-eeze!

Yeah, everybody, let's have access to OTC medicines rigidly regulated for all Americans, even though...

Approximately 80% of meth is produced by "super-labs" predominantly in California and along southern border states. Many are operated by Mexican criminal gangs whose extensive trafficking network supplies super-labs with ingredients needed to "cook" the meth.

Instead of just closing the frickin' BORDERS and save billions of dollars to boot!

[najida]

Apparently, the meth making business is booming in our relatively rural Alabama area. Almost daily you can find an article on a lab blowing up here or a motel room catching fire there - obviously not rocket scientists.

Same in my small, beautiful county. We are now the meth "kitchen" for the area. Used to be moonshine stills, now it's meth labs.

[Waterleak]

You sure it wasn't stinkeye or the omnipotent evil-eye?

[savedbygrace]

The way it works in Oklahoma is that the pharmacist has to take the info from your drivers license and record it in a book they keep. Theoretically, all the info in all the books at all the pharmacies are combined by the State DEA or whatever to see if one person is buying too much.

IMO, by the time they put all that together, the meth is made and out the door. But I can't back that up with facts, and can't know for sure whether it's effective or not.

[Sloth]

Speak for yourself. I have no desire to get ear & sinus infections from unnecessary congestion, and I don't particularly care about meth-users' lives, except that they don't end quickly enough for my taste.

[DBrow]

I don't think they took Chlor-trimeton off the market because of WOsD. They already took phenylpropanolamine off the market and they are trying to restrict pseudoephedrine, because they can be used to make Schedule 1 dope.

But Chlor-trimeton is not a chemical that can be used in a tweeker lab recipe.

It's probably competition from Claritin and Alavert et al, in short, a business decision.

I do expect the war on pseudoephedrine to escalate sharply, though. That and anhydrous ammonia, blueprint operation where I work used to get tanks of anhydrous ammonia for some print process and now the DEA wants record keeping of each drop of anhydrous. They switched to another printmaking process rather than face endless scrutiny.

[Nowhere Man]

I know I work in a drugstore photolab, sometimes I have to ring up regular customers and I have to card them to see if they are over 18 to buy cold products plus there are limits to how much you can buy. I'm the biggest proponent of busting meth labs or any illegal drug production and tossing the bad guys in jail but this is way too far.

[Numbers Guy]

It's probably competition from Claritin and Alavert et al, in short, a business decision

Oh, it was definitely a business decision, sorry if what I wrote implied otherwise. It's just that after the business decision was made, hoarding the stuff to get through hay fever season was made more difficult for me by the meth hysteria.

That being said, it was a better drug for me than the newer more expensive stuff. They still have the 4-hour Chlor-Trimeton available, but getting up in the middle of the night every night to take a pill during spring/summer isn't much fun. I'm now using Tavist.

[Nowhere Man]

Some of the local drugstores already have cold medicines with pseudephedrine in little locked cases on the shelves with the other stuff. I believe the state law is that a person can't buy more than three packages of these products in one place. Of course, that doesn't keep those stocking up for the meth labs from going from the Walgreens' to the CVS to Wal-Mart, etc. and get all they need.

We are talking about doing that in the drugstore I work at too.

[Quilla]

Sounds like a record keeping nightmare for pharmacists and the DEA.

[Tennessee_Bob]

Seeing as how Claritin D is a combination of loratidine and pseudoephedrine, instead of just pseudoephedrine, I'd say you don't have to worry. Especially since pseudoephedrine is available all by itself, without the cooks having to worry about splitting the stuff out.

[SheLion]

They are talking about Sudefed. The little red sinus pills? I have used them for years. They are excellent for me.

I can't help it if some criminal drug users are using this to make their dope! Why can't law enforcement find and close down the meth clinics instead of making us suffer?

One idea was to closely look at anyone buying Sudefed. Good grief!

[CARDINALRULES]

After our Sheriff's deputy was killed 2 years ago while investigating a double homicide, our Wal-Mart had it where you had to get it from the pharmacy and sign for it.

[Finger Monkey]

Amen, brotha.

[riri]

I cannot live without my Claritan-D. I wonder what the threshold will be before I am flagged as "maybe guilty".

Yeesh, I bought two boxes this week.

Well, first I bought the store brand which worked pretty substandardly. Probably my imagination. Then I went an bought the giant sized box of Allavert.

I am probably on a gov't watch list somewhere.

Sheet, I am probably on a couple governement watch lists, come to think of it.

And now they are all sharing information. This could get ugly (=