Pubdate: Fri, 04 Nov 2005 Source: Penticton Western (CN BC) Copyright: 2005 Penticton Western Contact: http://www.pentictonwesternnews.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1310 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?241 (Methamphetamine - Canada) RESPECT FOR RIGHTS VITAL IN WAR ON METH The province of British Columbia has taken several steps to combat the devastating effects of crystal meth - including most recently a plan to monitor the retail sales of products containing pseudoephedrine. While we welcome any provincial government support in the battle against this drug, we urge caution in adopting methods which potentially violate the privacy of innocent people. Every measure adopted by government must be balanced against the costs it imposes on society. It is critical that as a society we do all that we can to stamp out the use and production of meth - and part of that strategy must mean crippling the ability of dealers to supply the drug. The challenge in controlling meth is that it can be relatively easily cooked up using otherwise legal and innocuous substances, such as iodine and cold medicine. Rather than growing these ingredients in a secret garden or importing at great risk and cost from Latin America, they are readily and legally available to drug labs, posing a challenge for lawmakers and police about how to stem supply of the raw ingredients. The B.C. government has recently decided to ask retailers and pharmacists to monitor people who buy products containing pseudoephedrine in bulk. While the intention is good, we question whether monitoring the shopping habits of possibly innocent consumers is the best way to go. First, as Solicitor General John Les himself admits, the big meth producers are not buying pseudoephedrine from pharmacies and grocery stores. They are purchasing bulk quantities commercially. Developing a system for monitoring and tracking those sales is likely a more critical step than tracking low volume purchases in stores. Secondly, asking pharmacists to track the personal purchases of shoppers who do buy cold medication raises some troubling privacy concerns. People who may have no intention of making meth from their cold syrup may now be tracked by pharmacists and retailers and have their activities reported. Some may say that the ends justify the means - that the ravages of meth justify the potential but infrequent violation of a few people's privacy. That argument has some merit. But other provinces have adopted measures which may be as effective and do not carry with them the same privacy-violating side effects of monitoring purchases. Saskatchewan and Manitoba require medicine retailers to keep products containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter and sell them only in limited quantities. They are also in the process of limiting the availability of cold medicines to pharmacies only, keeping other retailers from selling the drugs. These measures limit the supply of pseudoephedrine without violating the privacy of those who are just trying to fight a cold. Finding a way to track large commercial sales - which means violating the privacy of companies rather than people - may be yet more effective. The issue here is not the seriousness of the problem. Meth is a devastating drug and we need to do all we can to limit and reduce its availability, provide treatment to those who want it and give people every reason not to try it in the first place. We only urge lawmakers to exercise judgment in taking those steps with the fewest unintended consequences. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake