Replies

NONE of these laws are necessary and they will not stop meth production. You need tens of thousands of these pills to make a batch of meth. People who are running meth labs aren't getting their supplies at Walgreen's, they're getting them in bulk from over the border. Oh, sure, there are probably a handful of people here and there who create much tinier supplies by buying a thousand pills, but those people are easy to spot if they wanted to.

The BIG BOYS who control meth in Portland buy supplies of precursor chemicals in 50 gallon drums. The essence of this legislation is the DemonRATS protecting their biggest contributors by putting mom and pop operations out of business. 'Follow the money,' I would be shouting if anyone in government asked me. Kulongoski and Burdick know the truth but are guaranteed local media attention by sponsoring this legislation. But after the law is in force, the Oregon Health Plan will be crying that they cannot pay for simple things like emergency care and medication for flu patients. At $ 110 cost per doctors visit, it is obvious that somebody is getting their palms greased. I could write to the Oregonian, but I know the lawyers that control what is published in that rag. Everything in this state is controlled from the top.

Boil everything down to simple questions and you will get the answers. Who is profiting and why? DUH! But I'm just a geezer trapped in the Peoples Republic of Oregon. Thank God that I'll be moving next year.

"You need tens of thousands of these pills to make a batch of meth. People who are running meth labs aren't getting their supplies at Walgreen's, they're getting them in bulk from over the border. Oh, sure, there are probably a handful of people here and there who create much tinier supplies by buying a thousand pills, but those people are easy to spot if they wanted to."

You are wrong about this. The vast majority of meth labs operating in this country are little small batch kitchen type labs where these guys are using a few boxes of pills to make a few grams of meth that will mostly be used by the cook and those who help him gather the supplies and cook the stuff. These little labs were being busted left and right in my state until we passed the law a few months ago putting the pseudoephedrine behind pharmacy counters. I'm a public defender and I've handled tons of meth lab cases. Our office used to get several of these cases a month and now we are hardly getting any. Narcs around here are now giving their little snitches pills so they can give them to people who know how to cook in exchange for dope. If that wasn't going on I don't know that we'd be getting any new cooking cases.

Most of the meth on the market in this country though does not come from these little small batch labs tweakers set up themselves. Most of the meth comes from the "super labs" in Mexico and western states that make pounds and pounds of the stuff at a time. It is true that those labs aren't getting their pills from the drugs stores, gas stations, grocery stores, discount stores, and so on like the little small batch tweaker labs. They get the pills smuggled in bulk or buy them in bulk from crooked wholesalers in country. These laws making the pseudoephedrine harder to get from retail sources won't have any effect on the super labs, but cutting out most of the little labs supplying tweakers everywhere with cheap or free dope is a worthwhile endeavor that costs very little to accomplish and in reality only causes a minor convenience to legitimate pseudoephedrine consumers if they have laws similar to Oklahoma's where they can get pseudoephedrine without a prescription if they just stop by the pharmacy and sign for it.

Oregon's new law is crazy though. Making pseudoephedrine a prescription drug is going to be a major pain in the butt for legitimate consumers. It's going to make the stuff too expensive for a lot of people who really benefit from it now. If I were in Oregon I'd be all over my state representatives and the Governor telling them to stop this law before it goes into effect.