Pubdate: Mon, 05 Sep 2005
Source: Roanoke Times (VA)
Copyright: 2005 Roanoke Times
Contact:  http://www.roanoke.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/368
Note: First priority is to those letter-writers who live in circulation area.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

A REASONABLE METHOD OF FIGHTING METH

The benefits of restricting cold remedy sales are worth the inconvenience.

With illegal meth labs proliferating unabated in Western Virginia, Gov. 
Mark Warner last week sensibly did what state lawmakers this year failed to do:

He signed an executive order requiring drug stores and other retailers to 
put over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines behind the counter and 
restricting the amount a person can buy in a 30-day period.

The drugs contain ingredients used in making methamphetamine, a highly 
addictive scourge of a drug easily manufactured in home labs that 
themselves present a public danger because of their toxicity and volatility.

States that had been visited by this plague in advance of Virginia have 
reduced the number of illegal labs dramatically by restricting the most 
abused of these precursor drugs.

The Republican-dominated General Assembly responded to a surge in meth 
abuse in rural Western Virginia by toughening legal standards and penalties 
for its manufacture, a strategy championed by Attorney General Jerry 
Kilgore before he resigned to run for govenor.

The Republican candidate continues to oppose regulating retail sales of 
cold remedies, saying the rules will be a burden for small businesses, 
particularly in rural areas.

But Virginia's rural communities are especially hard-hit by the wave of 
meth manufacturing and addiction, and stand most in need of the relief that 
Warner's action promises.

Luckily for them, Republican legislators do not feel bound by the party 
standard-bearer's campaign rhetoric.

Before the governor signed his directive Thursday, House Speaker Bill 
Howell and other GOP lawmakers said they will introduce legislation in the 
2006 session to codify the major elements into law.

In preparing that legislation, a task force of legislators, pharmacists, 
business people and law officers should look closely at other aspects of 
the executive order, requiring consumers to show identification and sign a 
register to buy their cold remedies.

The task force should determine whether registries have a large deterrent 
effect in other states, and abandon the data-gathering if it is not 
necessary. Government should intrude as little as possible in the private 
lives of law-abiding citizens.
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MAP posted-by: Elizabeth Wehrman