Meth Epidemic Prompting Lawmakers to Restrict Sales of Cold Medicines

[Tsiyu]

By Erica Werner Associated Press Writer
Published: Jan 26, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - The fight against methamphetamine may be moving from the streets to the corner drug store.
A dozen Republican and Democratic senators want to put nonprescription cold medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient used to make meth, behind the counter. Consumers would have to talk to a pharmacy worker and show photo ID before purchasing Sudafed, Tylenol flu medicine or other popular remedies.

Local law enforcement officials applaud the proposed legislation, but drug industry groups are lining up against it. They argue it would create unacceptable barriers for regular customers with a headache, fever or runny nose.

"It will limit access for the legitimate consumers to cough and cold products," said Mary Ann Wagner, vice president for pharmacy regulatory affairs at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores. "They're going to have to wait in line with everybody else, take the pharmacist away from their prescription customers to police the sales of the pseudoephedrine products."

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB89BD6F4E.html

[Mojambo]

1. Meth is SUCH bad news, man.

It will wreck you in no time flat.

[Tsiyu]

3. Yeah, it gets a lot of folks

Bad teeth, condemned house, fried brain.

OTOH, when they look at you funny every time you buy Coleman fuel for the stove or Sudafed for the allergies, maybe there's a better way to catch the ones cooking.

Like maybe cops who actually show up when neighbors tell them they're cooking it? Hmmm!!!!

[Mojambo]

5. The people that are making this crap

do it from the cracks in society. Digging them out isn't as easy as it might seem.

Like all drug addiction problems, the solution lies in treatment and addressing the serious economic disparity that exists in our country.

It's a poverty drug. Take real steps to eradicate poverty and Meth will fade away.

You don't see too many $150,000 dollar a year Stock Brokers getting high on Meth.

[NickB79]

11. Very true. It is especially prevalent in rural areas

Here in MN, it's no problem to find a run-down farmhouse on an unused piece of land, set up shop, and start cooking. Usually no electicity, but you can bring in propane cookers and such to cook the meth. No one ever notices, unless a farmer or hunter takes a stroll through the woods sometime. Hell, sometimes the farmers and their children are the ones making it! You fall on tough times, you lose the crops to drought, disease, flooding, etc, and meth starts to look very tempting. I have known parents that encouraged their children to help them grow marijuana in the woods, so it wouldn't be much of a step to go to meth for them. Also, there are no police, EVER. I grew up on a farm, and the only time I EVER saw a cop on the gravel roads around our place was when we called them (another story). You have an ample supply of anhydrous ammonia from the massive ammonia tanks farmers use to fertilize their fields with. It's a meth maker's dream come true.

Last year, in my tiny hometown of Upsala (population 400), they busted a meth lab in the very center of town. Since it is such a small town, it was only ~5 blocks down from the elementary/high school. Yet, this lab worked unnoticed for at least a year in a somewhat dingy, unassuming house right along the main street of town. They closed down the street and filled it with men in protective gear clearing out the house, which was later bulldozed down. The same thing happened on a farm a couple miles from my parents farm 5 yrs ago. There have been several cases of people dying or suffering lung damage from unsuccessfully trying to steal ammonia from the tanks, and inhaling it by accident. It was reported in the newspapers here last week that 75% of all crime in MN is now related to the meth trade, and that we're spending over $2 million fitting prisoners with dentures and replacement teeth as "meth mouth" destroys theirs. I'm almost afraid to go home sometimes; I grew up thinking all the crime was in the cities, not the country. We never even locked our doors when I was a kid, but now my dad has to lock everything around the farm to prevent stealing, and the shotgun in the house isn't just for deer anymore.....

[mrbill]

14. meth's a big problem here in rural north texas.......

In my county, over half of the local grand jury indictments are for meth related offences. Property taxes are going up .04/$100 to pay for the new jail to house all the offenders.

My first experience with a meth lab happened about 7 years ago while i was wandering around in the woods on the family farm. Found a strange pile of garbage, first thought was that some kids had a party. Noticed about 12 cans of engine starter fluid, a bottle of some serious drain cleaner, tupperware and coffee filters with residue, a bottle of red phosphorus, some battery packaging. a few beer cans and a cooler. Strange party, my guess was that the kids were huffing the starter fluid. Meth crossed my mind but i thought it had to be produced in a lab, with labware and a heat source.

Somebody weird going on and someone should tell the deputies, so I put on the gloves and put everything in a feed sack, tossed it in the back of the pickup and headed to the cop shop where things got real weird.

The first hour was spent watching the fireman try to put out the smoking feed sack. After checking the book they finally went to wallymart and bought massive amounts of baking soda to stop the reaction.

Then it was time for mrbill to answer about 200 questions from the deputy. He finally realized that noone in their right mind would turn in illegal hazardous waste and that i was just a dumbass for tossing everything in the feed sack and creating a posionous gas cloud.

Finally my new friend, the deputy, told me everything about the meth trade. He called it "nazi speed" and mentioned for about $200 in parts a failing chemisty student could make about $4000 in product.

Seven years later and meth has spread like wildfire.

Being a rural community we got some farmers that have them big anhydrous tanks. Perps come up from the metroplex almost nightly to fill their non-approved containers. Little do they know about the motion detectors. The deputies stay very busy.

A few weeks ago the city cops stopped a pickup with a burned out headlight on the main drag through town and found a working mobile meth lab in the back.

Three or four shoplifting incidents a week at the wallymart involving sudafed. If you buy more than 2/4 packs, depending on appearance, somebody is going to get your liscense number.

Meth might be one of my little counties largest economic engines. This can't be a good thing.

[Tsiyu]

18. Good post but please

don't put marijuana and methamphetamine in the same class. One is nature's offering; the other is made with rat poison and whatever...Folks around here who grow the one ( number one TN cash crop) would not be caught DEAD manufacturing crank.

[IA_Seth]

37. Hallelujah!

They are simply incomparable!

[unblock]

12. well, it's not EXCLUSIVELY a poverty drug

the only person i actually know who has a meth problem has a salary substantially to the north of $150,000.

[Mojambo]

13. I find that very surprising.

Not a very discriminating drug abuser (as if there is such a thing.)

[Chelsea Patriot]

23. Tina has plenty of friends who make Tall Coin.

Meth does not discriminate regarding income.

The Meth users I know, here in Manhattan, are business executives, white collar professionals, and lawyers.

Meth is epidemic in this country.

[Ms_Mary]

26. Maybe now, but they won't be able to maintain their positions. Meth will

take you down eventually. It's a big problem here and the recovery rate is a single digit percentage.

[Chelsea Patriot]

28. I Hear You, Ms_Mary! I have no idea how it will end for any of them.

Right now, because they are in management or executive positions, they are able to close their office doors and tell their secretaries they want to be left alone when the Comedown gets too intense.

Probably about 75% of my friends are behind meth to one degree or another.

The guys I know who are hooked, have intertwined meth and sex, an absolutely deadly combination.

Our roommate's best friend raves on and on about the intensity of an orgasm while on Tina. He knows exactly what Meth does. This acquaintance had the shit beat out of him after he passed out in a Meth/Fuck Pad and ended up at Saint Vincent's. But he still goes back. Reasoning is impossible with PnPer's.

I have done Meth twice, 10 and 7 years ago. Thank God, it didn't take! But, I will admit, Meth does increase your sex drive to unprecedented levels. It took me years to forget the sexual drive it creates.

I am by no means an anti-drug crusader; but, Tina is an entirely different class.

Speed kills.

[Ms_Mary]

30. They say you feel great when you start.

My Dh is an officer and he sees the ugly side all the time. A lot of the younger women wind up trading sex for meth. He says it's amazing how you can see really pretty girls start to hang around the dealers and months later, you can't even recognize them.

I ran into a girl I went to high school with last year. She used to be really pretty, had a perfect smile. Now she has no front teeth and looks like shit.

[Chelsea Patriot]

38. Meth Ate Away A Good Friend's Back Teeth and Jaw.

He was an incredibly handsome man. He had to leave NYC. He disappeared. I have not heard from him in years.

Mixing Meth and Sex is so dangerous. It's almost impossible to break that link.

It's interesting to hear that the same sexual dynamic between dealer and user occurs in the straight community as well as here in Chelsea.

Young people are especially vulnerable to this shit.

Someone up thread referred to Meth as 'Nazi Speed'. I have often thought Tina was born in a Nazi lab, and brought to this country via Operation Paperclip.

[VegasWolf]

31. The number one drug problem here in Vegas is meth. n/t

[Southpaw Bookworm]

21. Perhaps not stockbrokers

But in some areas middle-class women constitute a large chunk of meth users because:

A: They consider it a weight loss drug
B: It allows them to be supermom: raising kids, volunteering with church and the PTA, having dinner on the table at 6, and still having enough energy to be her husband's fleshy glory hole.

That works for a short time, until they start picking the invisible bugs out of their skin, and hearing the voices tell them that their dog is a demon in disguise. (Meth users have the same brain function patterns as schizophrenics.)

[Ms_Mary]

27. True. Recently,

DH had a call to a house where a woman thought people were knife fighting in her trailer's heating vents. And there was another one where the guy had to be taken to the ER and restrained. He thought people were coming out of the air conditioner to kill him.

[Jack_DeLeon]

2. this is fucked up.

why dont they just go ahead and restrict fire and electricity. Since without them you cant make most drugs.

[NurseLefty]

6. Yes, but pseudoephedrine is a key ingredient in making meth...

If it's not easy to grab off a store shelf, the harder it'll be for those to get what they need to cook meth.
This drug could be sold the same way aspirin/Tylenol with codeine is sold in Canada. You go to the pharmacist counter to get it. No big deal, really. The ID thing is a bit over the top, though.

[pinniped]

4. F-that!...I demand a 10-day background check.

I think San Francisco already has a limit on some of these items. If the checker rings up too many it will 'flag' the item.

Planning on cross-checking the names with local area meth lab busts eh?

--purchasers must show ID with their date of birth and sign for the product.--

[woodsprite]

20. They'd lose money

After all, a cold lasts 7 days if untreated, a week if you take the OTC meds.

[pinniped]

33. I got a bad one right now and it's been here since Saturday.

I almost coughed my lungs out last night and today I will break down and buy some of that medicine they use to make meth.

[Blue_In_AK]

7. You don't even need to make meth

with the over-the-counter cold drugs. My daughter's boyfriend overdosed on Delsym, a DXM-containing cough suppressant, had a psychotic break, broke into a woman's house, slaughtered her dog, and had to be tasered. He's still in jail almost a year later. Knowing the kid, I never would have believed he could have gotten so violent. He was always quiet and polite. My daughter was devastated. ... I can't really be mad at him because I downed a lot of unknown substances myself in my youth.

Almost anything has the potential for abuse, it seems.

[eleonora]

8. wow, this is freaky

I took some meth back in the days when I was stupid, but I didn't do it for long. That's scary.

[smirkymonkey]

25. Dextromethorphan is another problem, and you don't need to

do anything to it to get high (if taken in large amounts.) I know someone who has basically gone insane from abuse of it, it's really tragic.

[msgadget]

9. The grocery stores here already lock up this section of the store late

at night and I was expecting something like this to be proposed once I found out why. I understand how much further pressure this will put on the small pharmacy and the privacy and access issues, but how much OTC medicine does one cold sufferer need to purchase at a time? Civil liberties vs meth...

[Lone_Star_Dem]

10. If they're going to use language like "Meth Epidemic"

Then dammit, treat it like a medical epidemic.

I would love to see some real attention be paid to treatment options like GVG(gamma-vinyl GABA). It seems to be showing some potential in trial studies.
http://www.news-medical.net/?id=6376

Oh, and just for kicks, how about they pass legislation to increase access to treatment

Bills like:

S. 1138 5/22/2003--Introduced by Senator Norm Coleman and Congressman Jim Ramstad.
Help Expand Access to Recovery and Treatment Act of 2003- or the HEART Act - would eliminate current insurance practices that block access to care in health plans for people suffering from addiction. It would provide parity in coverage for addiction treatment services on par with all other diseases.

H.R. 2256 5/22/2003--Introduced.
Help Expand Access to Recovery and Treatment (HEART) Act of 2003 - Amends the Public Health Service Act, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, and the Internal Revenue Code to provide for parity in the application of treatment limitations and financial requirements to substance abuse treatment benefits under group health plans and individual health insurance coverage.

You do notice how long these have been floating about, don't you?

They can restrict access to pseudoephedrine products and it will help, for awhile. Then the Recipe will change and it will be something new. Meth has been made out of a variety of different chemicals in the past 30 years. Not just pseudoephedrine products.

Once again they apply a band-aid to a gunshot wound. :eyes:

[Toucano]

34. AMEN!

I agree with what you're saying, and I think this legislation needs to be better thought out, but let me offer one observation.

Sen. Feinstein is approaching this problem like a physician working in the emergency room. First, stabilize the patient -- stop the bleeding. Then treat the problem that caused the bleeding.

The trouble is, we never get the chance to address the underlying causes and the casualties just keep coming.

Does that mean we shouldn't try to stop the bleeding? Not in my mind.

But you're so right that the underlying causes HAVE to be addressed.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

40. Yes, that's the point

Limiting access to pseudoephedrine products will provide a small window of time. Use it!

Ideally, better treatment should have all ready been available before you cut the legs out from under the movement. Since it's not, I'm willing to play catch up. I'm just hoping they don't drop the ball again.

[MadHound]

15. More drug war insanity

That the vast majority of us non meth using citizens will have to pay for. And what is really sad is that it won't make a single bit of difference, for those wacky meth chemists will find something else to put in their witches' brew that will do the trick.

When will the public wake up and realize that the drug war is a failure, and is only hurting society, rather than helping it. Meth, pot, heroin should be legal, taxed, controlled like alcohol, but legal. It would make for a much saner society.

[Delphinus]

16. Well,

I feel silly asking this question, but since so many have shared their own experience with this, what is meth? Is it speed? A hallucinogenic? Like PCP? How does one know somebody uses meth? Thanks.

[Bridget Burke]

19. Methamphetamine is speed.

It's been around a long time--as pills or crystal (for fixing or snorting). Back in the 60's, it was regarded as one of the worst drugs; junkies might steal your TV or OD in the bathroom, but speedfreaks were plain nuts. (Back then, "cocaine" was a word in an old blues song.)

Meth is definitely not a psychedelic but excessive amounts can cause things to be seen that are not really there. Unpleasant things.

[Delphinus]

29. Thank you, Bridget

for explaining what it is.

[No Exit]

17. Sniff..sob..oh, the POOOR drug industry!

Lemme get this straight: we have this "war on drugs", and as a result, most of the addicts I see nowadays are people who are getting their stuff from doctors, through supposedly legal prescriptions... and the stuff they are addicted to is some sort of legally-prescribed medicine, and the profits from the sale of that stuff go to the drug company coffers. (Not to some evil illicit street pusher!) So the drug companies are all for restrictions...

But now the drug companies want to prevent restrictions on the sale of pseudoephedrine... they want the stuff to continue to be sold freely, even if that substance is contributing to "illicit" drug manufacture. So the drug companies are against restrictions...

Yeah, boy... those drug companies have only our safety in mind. I'm sure when their chance for profits runs up against a possibility that we might be less safe, they say "profits be damned! this is about the public's general welfare." Gosh, I never felt so safe...

[DrWeird]

36. Your post doesn't make a whole lot of sense.

First off pseudoephridine hasn't been covered by a patent in years. There's no "evil pharmaceutical company" with a multibillion dollar incentive wanting restrictions to be lifted. If I'm not mistaken, most pseudoephedrine's made by some Chinese manufacturer.

Secondly, I'd think most "evil pharmaceutical companies" would want their drugs to be sold over then counter, not via prescription. So I don't get the part about "the drug companies are all for restrictions..."

Lastly, I think most people upset about these restrictions are consumer advocates and civil libertarian groups, not drug companies.

[No Exit]

45. "Drug industry groups are lining up against it", says the original

post. That is, according to the article in the original post (to which I responded), "drug industry groups" are lining up against the legislation which would place some restrictions on the sale of the over-the-counter pseudoephedrine.

I took "drug industry groups" to mean a large mass of interests which included those who sell prescription drugs, as well as those who sell over-the-counter drugs. The actual manufacturer of pseudoephedrine is only slightly relevant, b/c I'm talking about those who have a financial stake in pseudoephedrine, and that surely includes many others besides just the actual manufacturer (who you say is Chinese.)

So I saw "drug industry" as encompassing those who sell prescription AND non-prescription drugs. This may be incorrect--are you saying that these two types of drugs are sold by two totally separate interests?

You say you don't get the part about "the drug companies are all for restrictions". In that statement, I was definitely referring to those who profit from prescription drugs (narcotics, for example.) The "war on drugs" is, in part, a device to keep the circulation of such things controlled only by the legal sellers/companies. If a company is making profits from a particular narcotic, the last thing it wants is for street dealers to be taking away its profits by selling an equal product to the addicts. When an addict buys heroin from a street dealer, it generates no taxes, and it generates no profit for the legally-formed companies who also sell narcotics (which have a similar effect to that of heroin). We all know there will be some people addicted to narcotics, and they will of course pay any price for what they "need" due to their addiction. Naturally, the legally-formed companies would prefer that these addicts be required to pay for THEIR product--and the legally-formed companies are assisted in this desire by the laws against street sale of narcotics. The street pusher goes to jail, and now the addict has to con some doctor or hospital into prescribing the legal stuff for him. (Think that doesn't happen? Trust me, I know for a fact it happens.)

If you are attempting to persuade me to some liking for pharmaceutical companies, I'm afraid that's a lost cause. I hate the bastards and every encounter I have with having to buy a prescription just makes me hate those bastards more. May they rot in hell. They are price-gouging scum who don't care about human beings, but only care about unfairly gouging money from those who can least afford it--sick people.

[Southpaw Bookworm]

22. Why then aren't they restricting matches

And fertilizer, since those are the other two central ingredients in making meth at home.

[MissB]

24. Oregon did this recently

And I cannot say I disagree.

I think Kansas may be the other state that made the move to putting them behind the counter as well.

It is an ugly, ugly problem.

[KamaAina]

32. Next frontier in the War on Some Drugs: Sudafed!

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2005/Jan/19/ln/ln08p.html

Laws that keep pseudo-ephedrine-based drugs behind sales counters and require identification with purchase are already on the books in Oklahoma. Twenty-four other states, including Iowa, Missouri, Indiana and Kansas, as well as Congress, are considering enacting similar legislation this year.

More than 300 primarily cold-remedy products contain the ingredient, including Sudafed, Nyquil, Tylenol Allergy & Sinus, and Actifed. Pseudoephedrine is a primary ingredient needed to make crystal methamphetamine....

Aiona (R Lt. Gov. -ed.) said there is a need to regulate pseudoephedrine before toxic meth production labs like those that plague Mainland states become prevalent in Hawai'i.

The proposed bill would classify medicinal tablets made with pseudoephedrine as a controlled substance, dispensable only by a pharmacist. Customers would be required to provide a valid photo identification and sign a logbook before buying the tablets.

The funny thing is, toxic meth labs used to be prevalent in Hawai'i about five or six years ago. You would read about one or two getting busted every single week. Now, the stuff is being shipped in from Asia and Latin America, much like other illegal hard drugs. They even said so on "Life or Meth", a documentary that aired on every major TV station in the state in December. Leave it to Aiona and the repukes to fight 199's drug war.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

35. Hawaii was ahead of the mainland on this

I think the smokable meth caught on there faster and then spread to California. That's the new enemy now according to my local government. I'm not sure why, but they are swearing it is.

I wish them luck with their endeavor. I would like to believe this is the remedy. I just don't see this having lasting impact on the problem.

I had a friend who had children, a husband and career. She started doing meth via a friend at work, just to keep up. It took over her life. She tried to quit and failed more times than I could keep count. Eventually she lost her job, followed by her husband and the kids. Last I saw of her before she disappeared she was crisp as a tortilla chip. This all happened in just under a 5 year time span.

After having seen what she would forfeit and do for the drug and what she went through trying to get off, I now advocate better addiction treatment.

If you take a way pseudoephedrine eventually it will be something else. Many things they once used to make it you can no longer purchase. They simply improvise with something else. If they can't do that they'll import it, just like you said.

[Megahurtz]

39. They need to find a different way to control this.

Who the hell wants to go to a doctor every time they get a headache or cold?

I think this may be also another backdoor to restricting the use of vitamins and herbs etc. without doctor's approval. And what about aspirin?

If this passed it would give the FDA way too much power (seig heil again):(

[Lone_Star_Dem]

41. You misunderstood

You won't have to go to a doctor. It's still over the counter med's. You simply have ask for it and show ID at your local store when you purchase it. The idea behind this is to limit over the counter access, not eliminate it.

They've been restricted in here for a couple of years now. It's not a big deal.

[Megahurtz]

42. Oh I see,

so they have a paper trail to follow the meth makers and help prevent underage users from buying it.

Somehow I still don't trust them. There always seems to be an underlying
reason for things like this.

[Lone_Star_Dem]

43. There is, it's the paper trail to the meth makers.

Don't trust them, it's not all they are claiming it will be. Read my post above in the thread.

What this might do is remove some of the dangerous labs from peoples neighborhoods, which is a plus.

[Tsiyu]

44. Interesting replies

Some misconceptions.

Meth has fried my cousin's brain ( they "talk" to her in the comics), caused friends and fellow musicians to lose homes and businesses and marriages, caused neighbor to steal from neighbor.

It's a highly addictive substance, no doubt. I agree it makes sense to monitor the purchase of large amounts of any item that could be made into an explosive device or a harmful drug, but this is a bit like closing the barn door after the cows get out. Not to metnion the fact that you're in effect "deputizing" a whole lot of ignorant people. ( I thought we wanted less government intrusion?)

We need treatment programs and opportunities for the poor, to be sure, but we also must educate the "sophisticated" user - users can be as well-to-do as any Oxycontin abuser - by running ad campaigns more concerned with meth abuse than cannabis. I mean, really. Do we need another insipid anti-pot commercial to laugh at? How about spending some $$$$$$$$ on anti-meth commercials?

Oh.

That makes sense. It'll never happen.....