Posted on 12/09/2005 8:29:21 PM PST by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON – Cold remedies that can be used by drug dealers to make methamphetamine would be forced behind store counters under legislation Congress is poised to pass by year's end. Lawmakers hope that federal restrictions – included in the agreement reached Thursday to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act – will stem a meth trade that has hit rural America particularly hard.
A number of states have already moved to curb the sale of cold pills containing pseudoephedrine, the ingredient used to cook meth in makeshift labs. The federal law would prevent meth makers from moving to states with weaker laws.
Stores would be required to keep medicines like Sudafed and Nyquil behind the counter and consumers would be limited to 3.6 grams, or about 120 pills, per day and 9 grams, or about 300 pills, a month. Purchasers would also need to show a photo ID and sign a logbook.
Those limits target meth dealers who buy large quantities of the drugs to extract the pseudoephedrine.
The measure is a compromise reached after months of haggling over the 30-day limit. Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., who pushed the legislation in the Senate, insisted the limit was needed to curb the meth epidemic.
"The heart of this legislation is a strong standard for keeping pseudoephedrine products out of the hands of meth cooks," Feinstein said.
The bill is weaker than one passed by the Senate in September that would have required cold remedies to be sold from the pharmacy counter. That would have prevented many stores without pharmacies, such as convenience stores and some supermarkets, from carrying the pills.
"We're pleased to see the current compromise," said Tim Hammonds, president and CEO of the Food Marketing Institute, which represents grocery stores and other retailers. "It addresses a serious law enforcement concern, but in a way that balances the need for consumer access to safe and effective products."
Hammonds said he was disappointed the federal bill would not pre-empt more restrictive laws in states like Oklahoma and Iowa, where cold remedies are sold from behind pharmacy counters. At least 37 states have enacted laws to restrict the sale of cold medications to starve meth manufacturers of their key ingredient.
Many leading retailers – including Kmart, Walgreens, Target, Wal-Mart – have already adopted guidelines to limit customer access to cold products or to limit their sales.
Some drug makers have changed the ingredients in cold pills to take out pseudoephedrine and replace it with another substance, phenylephrine, that cannot be used to make meth. A new product called Sudafed PE, is already on store shelves, though the old Sudafed is still available.
The measure would provide nearly $100 million a year for five years to train state and local law enforcement to nab meth offenders and would expand funding to prosecute dealers and clean up environmentally toxic meth labs.
Talent called the measure "the toughest anti-meth bill ever considered by Congress." He predicted that it would help reduce the number of clandestine labs where the illegal drug is made with common items like household cleaners and coffee filters.
The meth problem is particularly severe in the Midwest, where rural areas provide cover for the pungent chemical odor from meth labs. In Missouri, law enforcement officers seized more than 2,700 meth labs last year – more than any other state.
Passage of the measure could take place as early as next week, when Republican leaders press for a vote on the anti-terrorism bill. Some opponents who claim Patriot Act threatens civil liberties are threatening a filibuster unless changes are made.
The deathblow in the War on Drugs has been struck! We've struck at the heart of the evil COLD MEDICINE EMPIRE!!! /s
I guess I don't see what is so hard about asking the clerk to hand you a package of cold medicine as opposed to getting it yourself.
But I don't take it anyway, so....
Actually, in border states the opposite is happening. It's so much cheaper to make meth in Mexico and haul semi-loads of it into the US that Arizona meth labs are being driven out of business. Somebody ping the anti-globalizers - once again, American jobs are going overseas.
Well, it depends on whether the pharmacy/store is busy or not. I have waited in line 20 minutes or more at my local pharmacy- and with a 2 year old (or even worse the addition of the 11 year old autistic child and a squirmy 8 year old), that can be quite the challenge. When I am already sick or have a sick kid, the last thing I want to do is spend that extra time in line. I am also against it on principle- I think people who make or smuggle meth should be put away for life (and I am a libertarian when it comes to legalization of things like marijuana). Don't make life inconvenient for normal people. I am afraid, too, that if pseudoephedrine sales fall, the manufacturers will give it up and just find other alternatives that don't work as well. I already preferred PPA to pseudoephedrine (I always have sinus/allergy issues, can you tell?) but they banned PPA and now pseudephedrine is my only good option.
The local mom and pop meth labs are largely a myth. Over 80% of street meth comes from criminal mega drug labs in Mexico and in the SW USA. They buy the ingredients in bulk, not from Walgreen's.
The drug lords run the show, just as they do for heroin, crack, cocaine, pot and whatever else sells illegally on the street. They will stock guns, too, if made illegal.
Yeah, sure.
That's about as likely as wife-beaters moving to states where the laws against spousal abuse are weaker.
Let's face it, we don't have a federal form of government anymore. States are nothing but political subdivisions of an all-powerful central government, which is getting to be out of control.
Note the time-period=3 months.
I will bet you a bazillion dollars that in one year that number will be substantially greater once alternative sources of base materials are established.
You can pound on the supply side till the cows come home. It seems to make some feel that something is being done. It is not a very interesting hoax.
They're busting mom and pop myths at the rate of 4-5 a week around here.
Aww, what's a little inconvenience when it's a WAR we're fighting?
We all must make sacrifices.
Don't you support the WoD? Don't you want to win it, big time?
Then you'll just have to suffer (as I am) with less-readily- available, or less-effective, remedies.
Dr. Sam knows best, y'know! </sarc>
Without revealing too much, what do they use anhydrous ammonia for?
Is it for the chemical ingredient?or a part of the process of cooking?
I am happy you are so lucky.
I work with a man who has a condition which causes polyp growth in his nose. Every 5-6 years he neeeds an operation to remove the excess growth. Between operations he takes pseudoephedrine in rather large quantities, to clear up the nasal congestion from the growths. Sure, this is not good for him in other ways, but it is better than a constantly plugged nose with recurrent sinus infections.
This little law is going to increase his annual medical costs substantially. He used to buy in bulk from Costco, but now will need smaller quantities from more expensive suppliers.
We discussed this one day at lunch and what chapped both our rear ends was that the majority of the illegal supplies, are not home-cooked. This law is only window-dressing, it does not address a real problem.
What really bothers me is that he is a really fine man, devout and with a family. Yet, he is one of the real victims in the WOD, with the true bad guys being inconvenienced in a mnor way.
The Republicans have proved themselves to be bigger spenders than the Democrats, and they hold the Constitution in equal contempt. I'm not surprised that they are perpetuating drug warrior madness and embracing statist nonsolutions to the unsolvable nonissue of human intoxication.
The meth users had to find a supplier instead of cooking their own; good news for the Mexico and California superlabs!
I guess I can see your point. I just always had a problem with this kind of stuff being sold at gas stations along side the amphetamines. Seeing school kids load up on this stuff, now the power drinks.
Was a time when chugging a couple Mountain Dews was a good buzz.
They make it sound as if by making it harder to get sudafed meth production and use will go down. This is a band-aid measure. There are other ways to make meth, cold medicine just happens to be the easiest and most common recipe. Effing morons.
They are no myth here in the Northwest, where they've been cooking out of hotels, car trunks, motorhomes and trailers for over 20 years. They are a huge problem in the areas I live and ride dirt bikes in.
Besides Sheriff's deputies, state and federal foresters spend an inordinate amount of time in law enforcement for one crime - meth labs, many of which are mobile, or put up temporarily to cook a batch. Most of these sketched out tweakers are trying to crank out as much product as they can before they have to move their rig. Order off the internet? LOL, many don't have addresses, much less a computer or a phone.
It was the same when I lived in Southern Oregon 20 years ago. "Kitchens" were everywhere, and law enforcement couldn't keep up.
If law enforcement feels this will help stem this tide, then why not support the effort?
Keeping people to 120 pills a day limit - that's more than I've taken in the last 20 years!
I think if many of those complaining about trampled rights went camping and woke up the next morning to find out that there was a meth lab in the trailer right next to you that could have blown you to bits in your sleep, operated by a tweaker who'd slit your children's throat as soon as look at them, you'd feel a little more charitable towards any effort made to knock this drug down.
It's a real problem here, too. Why don't we just crack down on the people making this crap, or does that make too much sense?
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