WEST AIMS TO RESTRICT CRYSTAL METH INGREDIENTS

The fight against crystal meth abuse has led western provinces and
territories to a planned crackdown on the sale of cold medicine that
contains ephedrine and pseudoephedrine, the key ingredient in crystal meth.

At a two-day meeting on crystal meth, western ministers and government
officials agreed to come up with a plan by Oct. 1 to put restrictions on the
sale of the cold medicine.

They also agreed to hold a Western Canada clinical conference to discuss
best practices in prevention and treatment. And they called on the federal
government to toughen the laws around crystal meth and put tighter controls
on the chemicals that go into the drug with the medicinal ingredients.

Saskatchewan Premier Lorne Calvert, who instigated and chaired the meeting,
said the use of the drug is spreading from west to east, and governments
must act before it becomes an epidemic in Canada.

"We have an opportunity here to do some preventative methods for once and
deal very clearly and definitely with crystal meth now," he said. "It is
clear that we are not an island and that this is moving. If the United
States is any example, it moves quickly and it moves dramatically.

Politicians and civil servants at the meeting heard from officials in the
fields of law enforcement, prevention and treatment as well as first-hand
accounts from recovered crystal meth addicts.

North Dakota Attorney General Wayne Stenehjem, who attended the meeting,
said his state recently passed a law that restricts the amount of cold
medicine that can be sold to two packets and forbids its sale to minors. It
also requires that purchasers must provide government identification and the
store must keep a log on who buys the cold medicine.

A similar law in Oklahoma helped reduce crystal meth use in that state by
about 80 per cent, he said.

Much of Friday's closing press conference was aimed at the federal
government, with officials urging the it to implement harsher penalties for
crystal meth possession and trafficking, expand legislation to create
offences for possession on precursor ingredients of crystal meth, tighten
licensing controls on precursors to restrict superlabs creating crystal meth
and commit adequate controls to enforcement of precursor controls.

"The federal government should be ambitious and very robust in their
response because it's moving east," said Alberta Health Minister Iris Evans.