Pubdate: Mon, 21 Feb 2005 Source: Winston-Salem Journal (NC) Copyright: 2005 Piedmont Publishing Co. Inc. Contact: http://www.journalnow.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/504 Note: The Journal does not publish letters from writers outside its daily home delivery circulation area. WORTH THE TROUBLE If North Carolinians want to stop the in-state manufacture of methamphetamine, they'll have to put up with a little inconvenience at the drug store. So be it. Legislators are discussing ways to restrict availability to a key ingredient in the manufacture of meth that is readily available on drug-store counters. Meth manufacturers have been known to go into drug stores and sweep the shelves clean of cold tablets containing pseudoephedrine. They grind the tablets into a powder and use the pseudoephedrine for the manufacture of meth. There is no legal limit to the amount of cold tablets someone may purchase. Attorney General Roy Cooper, who pushed through a tough set of anti-meth laws during the 2004 session, says he wants the toughest restrictions on pseudoephedrine sales that he can get. The tougher those restrictions, the more difficult it will be for criminals - but the more inconvenient for those of us with runny noses, too. Cooper and legislators say they'd like to see cold tablets with the meth ingredient moved behind the counter, where customers would have to request them. They are discussing a limit on the number of packages that could be bought at one time and possible requirements for showing identification. All of that is good, but those measures alone are unlikely to stop the flow of ingredients to the manufacturers. North Carolina should look to Oklahoma, which has led the nation in fighting meth, for other ideas. Oklahoma law limits access to products containing pseudoephedrine, and the state is establishing a computerized database that would register every purchase of the product. Already there are grumblings from people in North Carolina afraid that fighting illegal drug sales might cost the state's pharmacies a few legal dollars. Rep. Mitch Gillespie, R-McDowell, said that he wants to fight meth manufacturers but not hurt retail merchants. There's no way not to hurt the merchants who are now benefiting from the increased sales of these products to meth manufacturers. But it is hard to believe that the pharmacies are in any way interested in profiting from this trade, in light of the enormous human costs of meth addiction. A little inconvenience to the merchants and a few lost sales won't hurt them. Nor will a little inconvenience for those buying the products for legitimate purposes. Meth is nothing to go easy on. It is a horrible drug that not only destroys the people using and manufacturing it but also harms those around them, the police who raid their facilities and the environment in which they operate. Defeating this scourge is worth a few minutes of waiting for a clerk to produce cold tablets from behind a counter. - --- MAP posted-by: Derek