Pubdate: Sun, 20 Mar 2005
Source: Herald-Sun, The (Durham, NC)
Copyright: 2005 The Herald-Sun
Contact:  http://www.herald-sun.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1428

STOPPING METH BEFORE IT EXPLODES

It is alarming, if utterly predictable, that methamphetamine is getting an 
increasing toehold in North Carolina.

The highly addictive drug, relatively simple to manufacture, has been the 
scourge of Midwestern states for nearly a decade. Police are destroying a 
growing number of meth-manufacturing labs in this state.

One reason methamphetamine use can mushroom quickly is that it can be made 
from simple items fairly easily available for legal, even commonplace, uses.

A key ingredient is pseudoephedrine, marketed as Sudafed and a host of 
generic cold and sinus remedies in drugstores, grocery stores and 
convenience stores. You can walk into one of those stores or a big-box 
discount retailer any hour of the day or night and buy a box -- or, in many 
stores, an armload of boxes and go on your way.

That convenience is a boon to a cold-sufferer -- but also a boon to a meth 
manufacturer.

Given that, the General Assembly should pass some version of a bill now 
pending to circumscribe the sale of pseudoephedrine.

Many states already regulate such sales -- commonly, by limiting the pills 
a consumer can buy at any one time. Often, pills are kept off the shelves, 
and a customer must ask a clerk to retrieve them from behind a counter. 
States may require a customer to show identification to buy the pills.

All of those are logical, common sense limitations. Yes, they add to the 
inconvenience of the innocent, but the inconvenience is slight compared to 
the scope of the problem they are intended to mitigate.

While we agree wholeheartedly with restrictions, we are concerned that the 
bill filed last week is too restrictive. The pills could only be bought 
from a pharmacist, who would ask for identification and require the 
customer to sign a log.

That means no pharmacy, no Sudafed or generic equivalent.

Pharmacists worry about record keeping; other retailers worry about 
limiting access (and, one assumes, loss of business). We are particularly 
sympathetic to the argument that requiring a pharmacist to be involved 
would make it unnecessarily difficult for people with a genuine need for a 
simple but helpful medication. That includes, of course, the vast majority 
of purchasers.

We can make great strides in combating methamphetamine without going that far.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Beth