BILLS TARGET FLOWERS, COLD MEDICINE

Look but don't eat.

Making it illegal to use morning glories and angel trumpets as
hallucinogens has proved troublesome for legislators.

Rep. Michael Strain is trying to outlaw all but the aesthetic use of such
plants. And Sen. James David Cain, in another attempt to stop drug abuse,
wants to keep over-the-counter cold medicine from being used to make highly
addictive methamphetamine.

Both men will continue their efforts this week: Strain in a House
committee, Cain on the Senate floor.

Strain's bill lists close to 40 plants and fungi, many of them available
for sale on the Internet, with purported hallucinogenic components.

"Ipomoea violacea seeds give a quiet, dreamy and trippy experience," one
Web site said of the morning glory.

Vinca rosea (a.k.a. periwinkle) and Brugmansia arborea (the lush, flowering
angel trumpet found in many New Orleans yards) also are among those listed
in the bill by Strain, R-Covington.

The bill allows the sale of the plants for aesthetic, landscaping or
decorative purposes. Because of at least one or two of the plants, the bill
ran into trouble with sellers of herbal and nutritional health supplements,
such as those sold by Utah-based Nature's Sunshine.

At least three Nature's Sunshine products -- a cough syrup, a remedy said
to relieve side effects from vaccinations, and a "distress remedy" for pain
and emotional upset resulting from minor physical trauma -- contain atropa
belladonna, also known as nightshade, according to the company Web site.
Another product, a cough syrup, contains another plant listed in Strain's
bill: Hyoscyamus niger, or black henbane.

Too much of either can be toxic, but the products are U.S. Food and Drug
Administration-approved, said Cynthia Reed of Baton Rouge, regional manager
for Nature's Sunshine.

"We love the bill," Reed said in an interview late last week; however, she
said some type of amendment is needed to exempt safe commercial products.
Strain said he is amenable to the change and expects to have the language
worked out in time to get the bill out of committee this week.

Cain, meanwhile, had hoped to pass a bill as strong as the one Oklahoma
passed last year in the fight against methamphetamine labs that use simple
ingredients, including components of some cold medicines, to create a
highly addictive product.

The Oklahoma anti-meth law requires that specific types of decongestants
that contain the chemical pseudoephedrine be kept behind pharmacy counters.
Buyers show identification and sign a logbook.

Busted labs in Oklahoma reached 1,254 in 2003, but Oklahoma Bureau of
Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs director Lonnie Wright credits the sales
restrictions passed last year for a precipitous decline. Authorities say
meth lab findings dropped by 80 percent after the law was passed in April 2004.

Other states are looking at similar laws.

Opposition to such restrictions was strong going into the Louisiana
legislative session.

"I think if you require some of these smaller stores to put them behind the
counter, they're probably not going to carry them -- in these small towns,
where they might have a grocery store but no pharmacy," Fred Burkett,
lobbyist with the Louisiana Retailers Association, said in an interview.

Cain, R-Dry Creek, settled for less in a bill retailers remain unhappy with
but may not oppose. The bill would limit the sale of pseudoephedrine, along
with related substances ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine, to no more than
three packages or 9 grams per transaction. The bill also states that no
more than three packages or 9 grams be stocked on a shelf accessible to the
public at any one time. That would mean constant restocking of shelves,
Burkett complained.

The bill would require that the shelves containing the drugs be under
constant video surveillance -- costly for some retailers, Burkett said --
or that the substances be sold only to people who produce a valid photo
identification and who sign a log or receipt detailing the transaction.

Stores violating the requirements could face fines of up to $1,000.

"That's a problem," Burkett said. "I don't think it's worth the retailers'
risk to sell this."

Cain said he is pushing ahead with the bill, which could be heard this
afternoon. "They don't want to be inconvenienced," he said last week.
"That's their objection.

On the Internet:

Strain's bill, HB20, and Cain's bill, SB24, can be found on the legislative
Web site: www.legis.state.la.us/

More information on hallucinogens can be found at the United Nations Office
on Drugs and Crime site: www.unodc.org/