Iowa limits sale of cold medicine to try to combat meth 'epidemic'

[NVMojo]

DES MOINES -- Iowa yesterday enacted the strongest state law yet restricting the sale of cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, an ingredient used illicitly to produce the mind-altering methamphetamine drug.

Under the new law signed by Governor Thomas J. Vilsack, Iowans will be required to show identification and sign their names when buying common cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine. Consumers cannot buy more than 7.5 grams of pseudoephedrine in a 30-day period without a prescription.

The medicines -- which may include such well-known brand names as Sudafed, PediaCare, Sinutab, Dimetapp, and Triminic -- will be banned from store shelves, where they could be stolen, and placed in locked cases or behind pharmacy counters.

Legislators, who passed the law unanimously last week, said the bill would make it inconvenient for consumers, but the measure would curtail methamphetamine production in the state.

snip...

(and the chimp feels this way about it:)

The Bush administration is proposing to cut federal funding by more than 50 percent for law enforcement, prosecution, and environmental cleanup related to methamphetamine. The president's budget also would wipe out the Safe and Drug-Free Schools program.

''We thought this would allow us to take one big step forward," said Dale Woolery, head of the Iowa governor's drug control office. ''But if we are going to see precious resources pulled out from underneath us . . . you could argue we are taking one step forward, two steps back."

more...

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2005/03/23/iowa_limits_sale_of_cold_medicine_to_try_to_combat_meth_epidemic/

[adwon]

1. NC is considering doing the same

I think the General Assembly was set to debate it this week.

[NVMojo]

2. this really is an epidemic in lots of areas ...the hell it brings down

on the user is vile, vile, vile!!!

Bush must want Americans to end up poor and rotting in their own skins ....

[adwon]

5. GOP version of tough on crime

Police? Who needs em? We'll just make the sentence 800 years long on the off chance you get caught!

[cynatnite]

3. This is odd to me.

There are only four of us at home, but when one gets sick, so do the rest of them. I usually have to buy two bottles at once.

How do they plan to deal with those with large families where more than one kid can get sick at one time? Would someone need to get a prescription just for a cough or a cold?

[NVMojo]

4. probably they would have to get a doctor's prescription ...have you

gone to Walmart and went to buy like a nose spray for congestion and two different cold pills and then thrown in Nyquil and then been treated like a criminal for buying more than three of these types of products??? If you don't know they have this forced limit programmed into their cash machines, it is down right embarassing ...

[Hobarticus]

9. Must go to a pharmacist for larger quantities....

When you purchase this stuff from you rlocal pharmacist, you have to show ID and sign in to a 'log' that can be used to track how much and how often you purchase. No prescription required, as far as I understand it.

Apparently pharmacists are better equipped to keep an eye on possible abuses than retail stores. They're also seeking to limit the doses that can be bought at those retailers. We may see 'single-dose' packages sold at grocery stores, Targets, Wal-Marts, etc.

The system's fallible, sure, but before the scale of the meth problem was understood, there were people buying an entire store's inventory out at once, and there was no way to raise a flag to that. It's something, at least.

[pdurod1]

6. They're not stupid

we have anhydrous ammonia tanks missing all the time. They'll just find another way.

[blogbear]

7. They aren't stupid but some uf us are about it..

Aren't there different ways (ingredients) to make the stuff? No worry about me wanting any, G W is 'mind-altering' enough for me..

[punpirate]

8. I have to wonder about the economics...

... of this. I have no idea how much pseudoephedrine is going for in bulk, but it has to be a lot cheaper than trying to separate it out from retail-priced patent medicines, then going through the rest of the process to make methedrine.

This may stop the small-time home cookeries, but the really profitable labs are, from what I read, getting theirs in bulk from Canada, and a lot of meth, ready-made, is coming in from Myanmar and Thailand. But, given the environmental damage associated with home labs, and the clean-up costs of those, maybe it's necessary.

As for being inconvenient, the standard Sudafed tablet is 60 mg of pseudoephedrine, so 7.5 g would be 125 tablets, or the equivalent. Lot of Sudafed per month for normal uses.

[OKNancy]

10. This is already done in my state

of Oklahoma. What you have to do is go to the pharmacy counter and sign a paper, and then they will give you what you want. This only applies to the hard tablets. You can still buy the liquid form of the cold medicine which can still be found out on the floor.

[Blue Gardener]

11. I applaud them for doing this

These meth labs are a blight on the state. Anything that can be done to at least reduce the number of them is ok with me. They busted one recently right next to a school here in Eastern Iowa. Kids walked right by this house every day. What if those chemicals had blown up?
Too often there are also children in the homes where they find these labs. Those children deserve better.