Oregon anti-meth law would require prescriptions

Reuters ^ | 7 31 05 | Reuters

[oldfarmer]

PORTLAND, Ore. (Reuters) - A bill passed by lawmakers on Saturday would make Oregon the first U.S. state to require a doctor's prescription for cold medicines containing an ingredient that can be used to make the illegal drug methamphetamine.

"We hope this will reduce the supply" of meth, Democratic state Sen. Ginny Burdick told Reuters after the Senate passed the bill.

Oregon's House of Representatives approved the measure earlier this month and Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski was expected to sign it.

The bill has widespread support, but critics say it would hurt people without medical insurance who cannot afford to go to a doctor for a cold or an allergy.

Although much of the nation's meth supply is produced in large labs in Mexico, the addictive drug can be made in smaller labs with easily available equipment and ingredients, including cold or allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said recently that meth had surpassed marijuana as the drug posing the greatest danger to the nation's children

[Know your rights]

My point was that the poster was complaning about paying $53.00 to see a doctor to get " a piece of paper" for pseudoephedrine.

I thought it was funny in that the pro-medical marijuana people were more than happy to pay $53 to see a doctor to get their piece of paper.

Nothing funny about it: some drugs have effects that make a doctor's supervision highly advisable, while others don't.

[robertpaulsen]

God, are you dense.

[gdc314]

Why would requiring a signature and ID stop someone who wanted to buy a small quantity from buying the small quantity needed to make meth at home? If meth is as addictive as they say it is, then the signature shouldn't make a dent.

But what are they going to use the names for?

[TKDietz]

I honestly don't think taking names is really necessary. Most of the benefit comes from severely reducing the numbers of suppliers where people can pick up their limit in pills. Before people would just go all over town buying or stealing a couple of boxes here and a couple of boxes there. Also, often there were people working in these stores who would sell people a lot more than the legal limit, either just to make money for the store or for free dope. People working behind counters at pharmacies tend to be checked out a lot better than people working at convenience stores and the like, and they generally have cameras on them. Less funny business goes on. Now it's much more difficult if not impossible in most cases to shoplift the pills, harder to find an insider who will sell large quantities of them, and with the reduced number of suppliers it's much harder for people to hit every store in town buying up pills without being noticed before long.

Taking names is supposed to ensure that people don't buy more than a certain amount every month. The names are to be used as evidence in cases where they think someone is buying pills with the intent to manufacture meth. I don't really like that part of the law because I think they accomplish enough just by drastically reducing the number of suppliers and by putting the stuff behind the counter where people won't be able to steal it, which is how a lot of these pills were getting into the hands of people cooking dope. I don't know that requiring signatures is going to produce much benefit over and above that, and I don't like putting everyone on lists like that such that to some extent everyone who buys pseudoephedrine is a suspect. But it's not that big of a deal because they are keeping track of your name for most other purchases for items behind the pharmacy counter as it is.

All I can say is these laws really are reducing the number of little kitchen meth labs out there. Our public defender office gets appointed on almost every meth lab case because people cooking dope never seem to have any money. We were getting these cases all the time before and now we are hardly getting any. Clients are telling me that they aren't able to get what they need to cook the dope anymore. Believe it or not, a lot of them are glad because they couldn't stop cooking the stuff before. There is still plenty of meth out there brought in from elsewhere but we don't have so many doing massive amounts on a continuous basis because they were able to get it free or super cheap cooking it or helping people cook it.

[TKDietz]

Their is an important difference in the $53 piece of paper medical marijuana users and pseudoephedrine users would have to have. The recommendation for medical marijuana lasts at least a year in states with medical marijuana laws. The $53 prescription for pseudoephedrine is something people would probably have to get every time they buy some pseudoephedrine or almost every time. Besides, marijuana is dead easy to get on the black market without going through the process of getting the $53 piece of paper. There isn't a consumer level black market for pseudoephedrine, yet.

[robertpaulsen]

"people would probably have to get every time they buy some pseudoephedrine"

Uh-huh. For those damn monthly colds.

[TKDietz]

If you are like me, you probably use the stuff once a year or less. Apparently though there are people with asthma and/or allergies who need the stuff all the time. People like that in Oregon are going to hate this law.

[robertpaulsen]

As I stated earlier, the Tylenol killer made my life far more inconvenient and difficult on a daily basis than this silly law.

[TroutFur]

I'm one of those people that need to take pseudoephedrine four or five times a week. I've had chronic sinusitus for years, and I live in the "valley of death", allergen rich springfield. I've found that pseudoephedrine is the most effective in relieving my symptoms, believe it or not. And now they are wiping out the only medication that I require, and replacing it with a nasal decongestant named phenylephrine hydrochloride. I've bought one box of this replacement decongestant, and it IS NOT EFFECTIVE. I can't afford a doctor visit or prescriptions! I'm a starving student! Are decent law-abiding people going to have to resort to criminality in order to relieve their allergies?!

Why hasn't aspirin been outlawed?! I've known several people that have deliberately overdosed on aspirin, attempting suicide. Aren't there warnings on labels about misuse and abuse? I'm sure that there is some idiot that has tried to choke themselves with toilet paper, let's outlaw it, too. Peanuts are deadly to some... Some morons huff gasoline and aerosols... Hell, let's outlaw everything!