Pubdate: Mon, 15 Aug 2005
Source: Times-Picayune, The (LA)
Copyright: 2005 The Times-Picayune
Contact:  http://www.nola.com/t-p/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/848
Author: John Pope, Staff writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

NEW LAW HARD PILL FOR SOME TO SWALLOW

Cold Medicine Access Restricted In Meth Fight

When Lashonta Faciane went into her neighborhood Walgreens drugstore
last week, she could hardly believe her eyes.

In the cough and cold section, where boxes of Tylenol Sinus, Sudafed
and other nonprescription drugs once dangled from hooks in the
Mid-City store, she saw only tags bearing pictures of their packaging,
along with instructions, in English and Spanish, to take the
appropriate tag to the pharmacy clerk to make a purchase.

"That's ridiculous," Faciane said, rolling her eyes.

What she saw was early compliance with a state law taking effect today
that gives "over the counter" an extra meaning. Under the statute,
customers in many stores will have to present themselves to cashiers
and request such popular cold and flu medications as Sudafed, NyQuil
and Claritin-D. The cashier will retrieve them from behind the counter.

The law is designed to restrict access to compounds found in legal
decongestants and allergy drug preparations that can be chemically
extracted and mixed with phosphorus, lithium and anhydrous ammonia to
make the powerfully addictive, and illegal, drug methamphetamine.

The law allows an alternative to stashing the drugs behind the
cashier's counter: sharply limiting the amount on shelves and training
a surveillance camera on the display. But the inconvenience of
installing cameras and continually restocking shelves has prompted
many managers to put the preparations out of reach.

CVS Corp., Walgreens and Rite Aid are among the national chains that
have opted for putting the drugs where only cashiers can get to them.

Connie Burkenstock, manager of Destrehan Discount Pharmacy, did it a
month ago.

"We had problems with people coming in and stealing it, so I had no
qualms about putting it behind the counter," she said. "The only
people that have problems are the people that can't steal it anymore."

Pharmacists as cops

Louisiana -- which has been cracking down on methamphetamine
manufacturing, particularly in rural areas, including the northern
part of the state and Lake Pontchartrain's north shore -- is one of 33
states to enact such a law. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has
passed a tougher bill that would lower the amount that could be bought
each month and require computer tracking of purchases, but no further
action has been scheduled, said Mary Ann Wagner, senior vice president
for pharmacy, policy and regulatory affairs at the National
Association of Chain Drug Stores.

Given how dangerous methamphetamines can be, Faciane reconsidered her
attitude about the bump in her shopping routine.

"I guess it'll save lives," she said.

For the pharmacy staff, there's more. Each Louisiana customer who
wants the remedies must display a photo identification card and sign a
log before buying the items, and people are limited to the amount they
can acquire each month.

"They're making police out of us," said one Mid-City pharmacist who
declined to let his name be published for fear that the store's owner
would be annoyed with him. On his counter were a new loose-leaf
notebook and a ballpoint pen.

Inconvenience aside, pharmacist Robert Kryjak was skeptical about the
law's deterrent effect on hard-core drug makers.

"The people that know how to do that are going to do it anyway," said
Kryjak, who owns Lee Road Drugs in Covington.

The maximum punishments that can be imposed on a pharmacy owner are a
$500 fine for the first offense and a $1,000 fine for each subsequent
violation.

The Louisiana Board of Pharmacy has sent a one-page digest of the
statute to its members. So far, there have been no complaints about
its provisions, said Malcolm Broussard, the board's executive director.

Loopholes in law

The new Louisiana law, like those in other states, is designed to
control access to ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, either of which is
necessary to make methamphetamine. These ingredients are commonly
found in cough, cold and asthma medications.

Starting today, each customer can buy no more than 9 grams per month
of a drug containing one of those compounds. That amounts to 30
30-milligram tablets per month.

Each store's log is supposed to help staff keep up with purchases, but
there is no provision for a central database to keep determined meth
makers from exceeding monthly limits by shopping at several outlets.

The law requires each store to hold on to the record for only 15 days,
with no indication of what to do with it after that period.

Methamphetamine, also known as "meth," "crank" and "ice," can be
swallowed, snorted, smoked or injected, and it has dramatic short- and
long-term physical effects. Early symptoms can include sharpened
attention, lack of appetite, an elevated breathing rate and a feeling
of boundless energy. Later on, methamphetamine use is marked by
paranoia, mood disturbances, out-of-control rages, irregular
heartbeats, highly elevated body temperature, rotting teeth and death.

The drug has been the object of increasing legislative attention since
Oklahoma passed the first law controlling access to its ingredients,
Wagner said.

"By the fall of 2004, we were seeing a lot of interest in what they
had done in Oklahoma," she said, "and people were starting to say,
'Maybe we should have a bill in our state.' . . . That is what has
propelled this. We have not seen any evidence that the problem is
getting worse."

Users start young

Based on conversations with his counterparts around the country,
Broussard said the problem seems worse in landlocked states, compared
with coastal states that have easier access to heroin and cocaine,
"things that are imported and easily distributed, which isn't so easy
in the heartland."

The National Institute on Drug Abuse estimates that 8.8 million
Americans have tried meth at least once. The age of the average user
is dropping, institute data show, from 22 in 1990 to 18 in 2000, the
latest year for which statistics are available.

Although the federal Drug Enforcement Administration estimates that
so-called "super labs" produce about 80 percent of the methamphetamine
that is injected and swallowed in the United States, concern is
growing about the smaller labs, run by amateurs. The ingredients used
in the process can catch fire and explode.

Because incidents involving the outlets consume so much police time
and energy, law-enforcement personnel complain that they can't fight
the bigger drug problems, Wagner said.

Given these conditions, she said, it's difficult to tell whether the
combination of restricting access and forcing pharmacies to keep
records might amount to overreaching by state lawmakers.

"Retailers are concerned because they operate in these communities,"
she said. "I would say that people are genuinely concerned about the
addiction problem. . . . We're working very hard . . . to try to make
the laws workable and to try to strike a balance. We're very concerned
about convenience for the customers, but we're very sympathetic with
law enforcement."

Staff writers Christine Harvey and Jenny Hurwitz contributed to this
report.
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