RED LIGHT ON METH

The Spreading Scourge Of Methamphetamine Warrants Strong State Action, Even
If Some Public Inconvenience Is Required

Using methamphetamine is anything but a victimless crime. In states where
it has gained a foothold, such as North Carolina, the highly addictive drug
has led users to cause deadly explosions and fires, neglect their children
and leave waste dumps in their wake. Coping with the damage caused by meth
is already straining state resources. Attorney General Roy Cooper is asking
the legislature for more manpower to analyze evidence in meth cases, after
hiring 14 new drug-fighting agents included in last year's budget. To see
more meth labs discovered every year, regardless of those efforts, is
maddening.

That's why Cooper sensibly opposes some retail business interests in hopes
of denying meth dealers access to their raw material: the pseudoephedrine
that law-abiding cold sufferers buy off the shelves in the form of popular
cold remedies. He is right to favor restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine
tablets to pharmacy counters.

Lawmakers have a choice of two bills taking aim at methamphetamine. The
Senate's version, passed in April, makes pseudoephedrine a controlled
substance that can be sold only at pharmacies by pharmacists (a doctor's
prescription would not be required). This makes sense because straight
pseudoephedrine is the preferred raw material of meth cooks.

The limitations on purchase in the Senate bill are not especially onerous:
They would cover dry, tablet forms of the medication. Consumers still could
buy gel capsules or liquids containing pseudoephedrine off the shelf,
including in groceries and convenience stores. That would answer earlier
concerns for Tar Heels in rural areas.

The House version, which was scheduled for debate yesterday, would allow
the sale of pseudoephedrine in retail stores without pharmacies under a
complex new regulatory scheme. Of the two approaches, the Senate bill
features the one with a solid track record.

It has been over two years since Oklahoma unanimously passed a law
requiring pseudoephedrine to be sold only by pharmacists and only to buyers
willing to show an ID. Discoveries of meth labs there have fallen 85 percent.

Until Oklahoma's results were made public, Cooper says, he had been willing
to entertain compromises with grocery and convenience stores reluctant to
give up profitable pseudoephedrine products. Missouri and Iowa tried
limiting retail sales, and found that meth cooks weren't deterred, even a
little bit. Both states went back to revise their laws this year the
Oklahoma way.

Tennessee has done likewise, and that's enough to keep Cooper awake nights.
The harder Tennessee makes it for meth cooks, the greener the grass will
surely look across the North Carolina line.

Meth addicts, with their paranoia and violence, have added 270 children to
North Carolina's population of abused and neglected young people since
2003. Over the same period, fires and explosions from meth cooking have
injured 42 firefighters and other first responders. And even the few
addicts with the determination to leave meth behind will suffer the brain
damage it has caused for the rest of their lives.

It's time for the General Assembly to take firm steps to help stop the
spread of meth. North Carolina has had enough of this menace to public
health and safety.