N.C. LEGISLATORS SAW THE LIGHT ON METH

The North Carolina General Assembly took a number of momentous actions that
had been a long time coming in the final days of its 2005 session last
week. With two opponents absent, one sick and the other on his honeymoon,
the Senate passed a lottery bill already approved by the House. And, after
much negotiation and some compromise, the House agreed to an increase in
the cigarette tax, from 5 cents a pack, the lowest in the nation, to 30
cents now, increasing to 35 cents next summer.

But, if the results in North Carolina are similar to those in other states,
nothing the legislature did during its 2005 session will have a more
significant impact than the passage of a law that requires cold and allergy
tablets containing pseudoephedrine and ephedrine, two ingredients used in
the illegal manufacturing of methamphetamine, to be sold from behind a
pharmacy counter.

Methamphetamine labs have become a scourge in North Carolina. It's not
enough that the highly addictive drug ruins the lives of those who use it,
the manufacture of the drug threatens the health of children living in
homes where labs are set up, the safety of neighborhoods where such houses
are located and even the workers at landfills where the hazardous waste
from the labs often ends up.

Pseudoephedrine or ephedrine, found in common cold and allergy medicines,
is an essential component in the manufacture of meth. The new law, passed
by the Senate in April and by the House last week, puts all tablets
containing pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed and Claritin, behind the
pharmacist's counter and requires customers to show photo identification
and sign a log to obtain the medication. The law restricts purchases to
nine grams a month without a prescription. The liquid and gel forms of the
medicines are not restricted by the law because there has not been any
evidence that they are used in the manufacture of meth.

Sen. Walter Dalton, D-Rutherford, who sponsored the bill in the Senate,
said he did so because he had seen the effects of the drug. Rutherford
County has been among the counties with the highest number of meth lab busts.

"Because of the problem we've had, I have truly seen the devastating
effects of meth. It's highly addictive, it's easy to get the ingredients
and that was part of the problem," he said.

N.C. Attorney General Roy Cooper also deserves credit for his advocacy of a
strong bill to restrict the sale of drugs containing pseudoephedrine or
ephedrine.

We commend Sen. Dalton and the attorney general for the role they played in
making the new law a reality, along with the other Senate and House members
who supported it.

After a law similar to the one passed by the North Carolina legislature was
implemented in Oklahoma the number of meth lab busts decreased by 80 percent.

Here's hoping that happens in North Carolina and there's every reason to
hope that it will.