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YOUR COLD MEDICATIONS COULD DISAPPEAR FROM STORE SHELVES

When it comes to buying decongestants in Tennessee, will the innocent citizens have to suffer a loss of privacy because of the misdeeds of criminals? Gov.  Phil Bredesen's Task Force on Methamphetamine Abuse has been studying ways to get pseudoephedrine out of the hands of meth producers.  Pseudoephedrine is the main ingredient in many popular over-the-counter cold and allergy relief medicines.

It's also the main ingredient in the making of methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant known as "poor man's crack" that attacks the central nervous system.

One of the possibilities that the state Legislature might consider next year is that a registry be set up so that whenever you buy the cold pills, you would have to sign for them, and your name would be put on file.  If you purchase more pills than would be needed for personal use, that could trigger a law enforcement inquiry.  Tennessee also may consider making pseudoephedrine equivalent to a controlled substance that can be dispensed only by pharmacists.

This idea is not popular among pharmacists because they are afraid it will put them on the front line of law enforcement and leave them vulnerable to armed robbery.

Task force member Doug Wilson, a Rite Aid pharmacist from Rockwood in Roane County, sensibly suggested pulling from shelves only the products used by the illegal meth makers, rather than removing them all.  Surely, the Legislature can strike a compromise between the need to curtail meth production and the rights of honest citizens to buy their cold pills without jumping through too many regulatory hoops.