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This is from an article posted in the Mpls StarTribune. What are your thoughts? Is this a reasonable inconvienience to try and prevent the manufacturing of Meth?



.....Beginning 30 days after enactment of the bill, sponsored by Sen. Linda Berglin, DFL-Minneapolis, only licensed pharmacies in Minnesota would be allowed to carry remedies containing pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, over-the-counter medications that require no prescription.

The widely used nasal decongestants would be reclassified as controlled substances, meaning they could no longer be sold in convenience stores and groceries.

Consumers still wouldn't need a prescription to buy the drugs, best known under the brand names Sudafed and Actifed, but they would be required to sign a pharmacist's log and provide identification with proof that they are at least 18 years old. Buyers would be limited to two packages of the medication each month.

Placing such curbs on an over-the-counter remedy would be practically unprecedented in Minnesota. But proponents of the bill argued that it is the only proven means of countering a methamphetamine epidemic that has shattered families and communities, especially across rural America.

"We want something that will work," Berglin said. "This will save lives and reduce pain and suffering."

Methamphetamine is highly addictive and can cause violent and psychotic behavior as well as organ and brain damage.....

Wayne Brady

I'd hate to have go through the bull to buy Actifed, but its a small inconvenience. I couldn't imagine how miserable my life would have been without it. At least they aren't banning it all together. It's hard to say if Meth is one of those issues that law enforcement and politicians push to the forefront to get everybodies attention because thank can't or won't do anything about really important issues. But I guess if you have been a victim of crime recently you know that it was likely someone trying to get money for drugs. Here in the sticks, it's usually crank(meth) or hillybilly crack(oxycotin). The part I don't get is why all the hubbub? Why not just impose mandatory sentences like during the crack epidemic of the '80's. I can't imagine were they got the idea to stop the source of the drug rather than just lock people up for life.

VIVIX

Being from North Dakota, growing up in a town where the DEA definetely knows the streets by heart and seeing a lot of my neighbors being busted for meth which I guess (I'm sorry Wayne Brady, I usually agree with you, but meth is a huge problem in the midwest. Right now I could go out to a field, fill up a propane tank with anhydrous amonia [a liquid fertilizer that is very hazardous, and usually left in tanks sitting in open fields with no locks or protection] and drive to Minneapolis and sell it for at least $500 dollars because it is one of the main proponents to meth-amphetamine.

I think North Dakota should have this bill. I don't believe in the use of medicine anyways. When I get a cold, I can live with the sympton, I'm not some pussy remedy junky who needs to be shootin' up with Sudafed every day.

Meth destroys families, I'm a huge supporter of the DEA on cracking down on meth.

The shit literally eats you from the inside out. My mother works at a dental office as a dental assitant at one of the few offices that takes people on HMO's or something that is low-budget and is government paid and gets tons of meth addicts as visitors. When they take X-rays of the mouth they can tell. Meth addicts have hollow teeth.

My cousin works at a grocery store and before they put the cold medicine under the counter they would find opened boxes of cold medicine in the bathroom with all of the pills gone. People would come into the store, take boxes of cold medicine into the bathroom and steal the pills and just throw the boxes away. Meth is a very serious problem here. My best friends have been busted for manufacturing and selling meth. I didn't even know about it because their family is a big farming family and have high status in the community. This shit is seriously a huge problem.

And with damn near all of the components easy to obtain, here is a picture that shows the stuff you need.



If you look at all that shit, you used to be able to go down to your local hardware store and pharmacy to buy nearly all of it. I used to work at a hardware store a few years ago and people would come in wanting to buy a case or two of Heet (the shit you put in your gas tank to keep it from freezing during the winter) in the middle of the summer. My manage called the cops on them. Non-farmers would come in and buy twenty, thirty feet of clear plastic tubing (the hose used for fertilizers, chemical sprayers on the fields) needless to say the cops were also called on such occassions. I'm sure you've all seen this picture before.

It's pretty self explanatory.



To conclude. I think this is a great idea and a major step in fighting the manufacture of meth and hopefully it does cut down on the production of the most deadly drug in the drug market.

Wayne Brady

Thanks for the perspective, VIVIX. Especially how it effects the owners of anhydrous ammonia. I thought I had heard something about that before. It's amazing how a drug epidemic effect the whole community. The problem I have with this epidemic is where are all the heavy handed tactics used in the '80's and '90's. Though the country has grown more conservative, we gotten softer on drug enforcement with respect to meth. Maybe it's because the perps are our neighbors instead of some inner city gangbanger. It's ridiculous how crack and meth seem to have 2 totally different solutions only because they effect different communities and different people.
As for as the legislation, it's only a small inconvenience. Some people actually need these drugs like most people need Aspirin. I, myself included, have allegeries bad enough to cause regular nosebleeds. And my condition even deteriorated into pneumonia a few times...in the middle of summer! I even turned down football scholarships to NC State and Wake Forest to go to a smaller school that had artificial turf. Though I seem to be growing out of my allergies, I can't mow the grass or go golfing without getting sick. I actually keep Actifed in my house, car, and at work, just in case.

VIVIX

I honestly thought nasal decongestants were used for colds. I didn't realize people with allergies used them. I always thought they had their own special nasal stuff (I had a nasal spray inhaler thing when I had allergies when I was younger) but a lot of this stuff has restricted buying. There is a lot of stuff I feel I know about meth and other people should know. I'm not very knowledgeable about the penalties that were induced on coke dealers in the 80's but a lot of meth dealers/manufacturers are only in jail for two months and then they're out on probation for a short period because most of them just get back into it.

Another thing about meth-addicts is there paranoid binges. I've seen pictures of the houses that the DEA has busted and some of them are just messed up. They usually cover all of their windows with blankets, tin-foil and whatever else they can use to keep out the light and other "harmful energies" so the aliens can't read their mind. If they have kids...it's sick. There was a picture of a rifle laying on the floor next to toys, a wagon full of harmful substances, like battery acid, ammonia, just a bunch of stuff in the picture I have up a few posts. A mattress leaning up against the crib so the parents wouldn't have to put the baby in the crib, but so he could crawl up the mattress into his crib. It's rather sad. If you went to a rehab clinic up here and listened to some of the "former meth addicts" you would be in tears because of the way they lived and what they have done.

Another thing is the sores they have on their arms, chest and other parts of their body because they see bugs crawling under their skin and they constantly scratch and dig themselves to get the bugs out. So they have open sores all over their body.

I could go on all day about meth and how it messes your body up, how it makes you feel and it's powerful addictive properties but fortunately I can't right now.

Jimi

I think it's a good idea. Meth is a retarded drug, and it needs to be made as hard as possible to get the chemical components that make it. This could also possibly lead to a decline in domestic ecstacy manufacture.

jf

i support that legislation 100%. it's great to see somebody get proactive about drug use instead of just being reactive. locking people up is not a reasonable answer. i know people that used meth (i live in rural PA) and oxycontin and they get messed up. any kind of drug should be made difficult to obtain it just seems funny to me that people think there should be some kind of exception when it would be inconvenient for them to get a prescription for zyrtec or something instead of taking actifed all the time. especially people that talk about the deterioration of moral fiber in America. dont put people in jail. prevent the crime from being commited in the first place. but dont get me wrong the issue isnt that it's a crime. the issue is that it destroys the lives of not only people that use but also their families and people that do business with them etc. thanks.

thepipebomb

My girlfriend is from Tennessee and she told me that they already do this there. She said you have to go to the counter in order to purchase these OTC drugs that are used in meth.

Juan.©amaney

You could always buy the crap in Mexico. As long as there is demand, people will get it by any means necessary.

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ringo00

This new law won't stop anything. So the people who want to buy the stuff will have to go to the pharmacy counter and ask for it. That doesn't make it any harder to get. What good will it do to keep a log of who buys a perfectly legal OTC drug. Are the police going to investigate every ephedrine user on the list? This legislation is nothing more than paranoid posturing, serving only to calm the uneducated and unthinking masses. The bottom line boils down to one thing: if someone wnats to buy ephedrine, for any purpose legitimate or not, they will. If the lawmakers truly wanted to make ephedrine hard to get, they would outlaw it completely. I don't see how making them ask for it is any better than letting them pick it up off the shelf.

VIVIX

You must not realize how much ephedrine it takes. It doesn't take one or two packages of pills. We're talking possibly hundreds of boxes. They use 5 Gallon buckets to crush the pills and extract the stuff they need.

Not sure on the hundreds of boxes, but I do know you need quite a few boxes to make a batch. Plus if this law went into affect in rural North Dakota or even some of the bigger cities, which only contain upwards to a max of five pharmacies, getting ephedrine would take so much time and energy. Let alone paying for gas in rural North Dakota where most towns don't even have pharamacies and the nearest one is anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes away.

Of course the normal "if you want it YOU WILL find a way to get it" argument goes with this, but when people get really really desperate they get stupid and mess up somewhere along the line.

And yes, if a person's name showed up on a lot of pharmacy lists buying ephedrine the police would definetely put forth enough time and energy to check them out.

thepipebomb

Absolutely correct. If you’re buying a OTC drug for illegal purposes don’t you think that a criminal would be deterred if he/she had to show ID in order to obtain the legal drug? And it is my understanding that they limit the amount you can buy. Like VIVIX said it doesn’t only take one or two or even ten boxes to make a batch of this stuff. If someone came into a pharmacy and asked for 50 boxes of cold medicine you can bet your ass that is going to raise an alarm.

clamsrus

Most of the components are obtained by burglaries and theft of consignment, misassignment and deliberate accounting fraud and collusion in exchange for favours or cash. This legisation will only stem any multiple prescription abuse...ie....10 scripts from 10 different docs in the same day, filled out at 10 different pharmacies.....so unless you have a accurate realtime electronic account of all scripts then this is a total waste of time and resources.

It does however give the AMA greater control of who decides whether you need or receive the medication....ie....over the counter and self diagnosis and medication dries up. The AMA is quite happy to exploit the current drug abuse problem to its own ends and dress it up as a conservative preventative measure.......

Most general practioners would be laughing.....most pharmacists spitting

This type of legislation has ben in place in NZ for years for a range of products....and guess what....it's that old joke
"Public Relations is like pissing yourself in a blue serge suit.....gives you a nice warm feeling and nobody seems to notice"

VIVIX

I guess we'll have to see how the number of meth related drug busts are affected by this legislation. Hopefully it does cut back...but that could mean either two things. Either the legislation is working and people are having trouble cooking the stuff or the cops are slacking.

If anything it is an attempt to help curb the huge problem. So it has my support.