Posted on 06/09/2005 8:27:43 AM PDT by outfield
The days of buying certain cold remedies off the drugstore shelf may soon be gone, a casualty of the methamphetamine epidemic.
Picking up on laws already passed in more than a dozen states, Congress is thinking about requiring the nation's retailers to sell medicines like Sudafed and Nyquil behind the pharmacy counter to make it harder to get the ingredients needed to make highly addictive meth.
A similar law in Kansas took effect this week and a bill in Missouri is awaiting the governor's signature.
Retailers, who once resisted the idea as burdensome for consumers, now seem ready to go along with it in hopes of avoiding a tangle of state regulations. This month, a Senate committee will hold hearings on a bill that places sharp new restrictions on the sale of cold and allergy pills containing pseudoephedrine, which is used to ''cook'' meth in makeshift labs across the country.
''There's a lot of public pressure to do something,'' said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo., who together with Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., introduced a bill to limit the sale of cold medicines. ''I think retailers _ most of them _ do not want to sell their products to meth cooks and they know they have to do something.''
Their bill, modeled on an Oklahoma law that took effect in April 2004, requires medicines with pseudoephedrine to be sold only by a pharmacist or pharmacy personnel. Customers would have to show a photo ID, sign a log and be limited to 9 grams _ or about 300 30-milligram pills _ in a 30-day period. The government can make exceptions in areas where pharmacies are not easily accessible.
Some stores, like Target and Wal-Mart, have already adopted their own guidelines to move cold products behind pharmacy counters. And last month, the National Association of Chain Drug Stores endorsed a set of principles that includes limiting access to the drugs.
''We do think it's time for a federal solution,'' said Mary Ann Wagner, the association's vice president of pharmacy regulatory affairs. ''It's just becoming so complicated when you look at a map across the country and no two laws are anything alike.''
Even the drug industry has not raised major objections to federal legislation. Jay Kosminsky, a spokesman for Pfizer, which makes Sudafed, said the company supports having a national standard that would put pseudoephedrine behind the counter.
''I do think there really is an opportunity for a national consensus on this issue and I don't think there was a year ago,'' Kosminsky said.
Talent said he and Feinstein plan to unveil a new version of their bill this month that addresses some of the concerns of retailers. The updated measure would, for example, carve out exemptions for children's cold medicines, where the pseudoephedrine is too difficult to extract.
House Majority Whip Roy Blunt, R-Mo., is revising a similar bill in the House and has made meth enforcement one of his top priorities.
The biggest problem for retailers, Wagner said, is requiring a pharmacist to sell the medication. She said store personnel should be able to make sales as long as they are under the pharmacist's supervision.
The effect on sales is a key issue. In Oklahoma, where pharmacists must supervise transactions, cold medicine sales have dropped. Sales have not suffered in Illinois, which has less restrictive rules and allows other store workers to dispense the drugs.
The Bush administration has not taken a formal position on the Talent-Feinstein bill. But John Horton, associate deputy director for state and local affairs for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, said early signs show state laws are having a positive effect.
An ONDCP report issued last month found there has been a 50 percent drop in the number of meth labs in Oklahoma and Oregon, two of the first states to enact laws restricting the purchase of pseudoephedrine-containing products.
''We know that when we prevent the methamphetamine cooks from getting the ingredients they need to make the meth, that the problem becomes smaller,'' Horton said.
Horton estimates about a third of the meth comes from small labs in the United States, while two-thirds is smuggled in bulk from big labs outside the country, mainly Mexico.
The meth problem is particularly bad in the Midwest, where rural areas provide cover for the pungent chemical odor coming from meth labs. In Missouri, law enforcement officials seized more than 2,700 meth labs last year, more than any other state.
''The labs themselves are a huge problem in communities,'' Talent said. ''They are toxic waste dumps, they're fire hazards, they're threats to children and they're overwhelming law enforcement.''
Lt. Steve Dalton, supervisor of the Combined Ozarks Multi-Jurisdictional Enforcement Team, an anti-drug police task force in Branson, Mo., calls the meth trade the worst drug problem he has ever seen.
''A federal law is not going to wipe it out, but if we can get away from the cleanup of these meth labs, it's going to free up a lot of our time and we can target those that are bringing it in from across the border,'' Dalton said.
I think it's important that these products are still available to consumers who will use them for the right reasons, but there needs to be steps taken to curb abuse.
If the ones you have aren't working, it must be because you don't have enough of them yet.
I think it is pretty senseless. All the meth junkies will do is go to multiple stores to purchase one package at a time. It will make it more difficult but a minor inconvenience.
I think the solution to all of this would be to have a law enforcement officer stationed in everyone's home 24 hours a day. Not only will that prevent meth abuse, but it will also prevent any other crime from taking place. A lot of lives will be saved. No one will use drugs, either. Who's with me?
I don't see how restricting law abiding citizens in this way will stop criminals. Perhaps I'm just not bright enough to see the connection.
Perhaps the Interstate Commerce clause could be used to go after those growing meth.
The law here in OK has cut into the Meth trade. Doesn't bother me to go to the pharmacy to get what I need if it saves one person from getting hooked on Meth. I watched a TV report with Asa Hutchinson and was astounded how addictive and dangerous that meth was -- knew it was dangerous from the the explosions and chemicals used but to watch the people that were hooked and hear them talk made me glad that Oklahoma was one of the first states to pass this law.
Every last one of them started with Pot -- that "non" addictive cigarette (sarcasm) but they wanted more of a high. Have no use for drug users of any kind or people that drive under the influence of anything. They cost all of us whether the drug users want to admit it or not.
I was broadsided in my car by somone smoking pot that ran a stop sign. Guy couldn't put two coherent sentences together but tells the cop he wasn't drinking -- got that right he was high on pot -- left the cigarette burning in the ash tray. He was adament not to call the cops but since my car had a lot of damage and my shoulder was hurt from the seatbelt, I called them and he ended up in jail.
I went to his hearing and his lawyer tried to say that smoking pot doesn't impair his driving. Well if someone cannot put two coherent sentences together and laughs at what the cop is saying, don't tell me it doesn't impair driving and everything else.
BTW, if you haven't guessed, I am anti-drug but I also am anti-alochol abuse. If someone needs to get high or drinks too much, then something is wrong in their life IMHO. And if they get behind the wheel of a car, then throw them in jail and let them wake up to being surrounded by bars as walls.
As a taxpayer and payer of car insurance, I am sick and tired of both drug and alcohol abusers wasting my money with their irresponsible behavior!
My more than two cents!
That type of attitude sucks. It is the type that leads to no freedom, because we can always "save one life", and "it doesn't affect me". No not until it bites you in your A**, and then you whine. Sorry, MY 2¢.
Excellent post!
Just great!! I may as well buy my cold medicine off the street. They make it simple -you pay- they deliver on the spot. And it they're making this meth out of cold medicine, it must be good for colds right? Plus all this gang violence is over turf rights means competition and competition is good for me the consumer. You don't see one pharmacy roughing up another just so he could get MY buisness. That's it no more government-run paper-tied pharmaceutical bureacracies for me. I'm taking a stand for freedom and taking it to the streets.
I say we just ban Sudafed. After all, if it saves just one life, or keeps one kid from getting hooked on Meth, it'll be worth it.
Well said
You're mostly correct. The cooks will go store to store and purchase the allowable limit or if it can just be shoplifted why pay for it? Surprisingly, many smaller mom and pop corner stores sell ephedrine based meds out the back door at a significant mark-up to the meth cooks. Of course that raises the street price too but thats never stopped the addicts.
You ARE being sarcastic, right?
My response to your post were you drunk when you composed it?
You went from talking about meth- a truly heinous drug that destroys people quickly, to an unsubstantiated claim that all meth addicts started smoking pot (I would bet money that most drug abusers started with cigarettes and alcohol...). Next a rant about a traffic accident involving a pot smoker.
What does the pot smoker who you got into an accident with (sorry about the accident I hope there were no injuries!) have to do with meth laws?
BTW I agree anyone who drives while inebriated needs to be dealt with harshly, no matter what drug (inc prescriptions).
Is that what Asa said in the interview, or are you just making it up?
BTW the "Gateway" Theory has been debunked many times over on this forum.
Sad to see that you are falling for it hook, line and sinker.
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