POLICE WANT RESTRICTIONS ON COLD PILLS

KANSAS CITY, MO. - The debate over Missouri's growing methamphetamine
problem took a major turn Wednesday, as police from around the state
demanded that some common cold pills used to make the drug be classified as
regulated narcotics available only at pharmacies.

At issue is a chemical called pseudoephedrine. It's an active ingredient in
more than 80 over-the-counter remedies that are sold everywhere from gas
stations to grocery stores. But pseudoephedrine also is a key ingredient in
most recipes for meth, a powerful stimulant often called ice, crystal or
crank.

Missouri last year toughened existing regulations on how much
pseudoephedrine a store could sell to an individual customer, and added new
restrictions on where those cold pills could be displayed. As a result, meth
cooks and their helpers now must shop at dozens of stores to get the
thousands of pills needed to make even a few ounces of meth.

Police at the summit said that without tougher regulations, the explosive
increase in small meth labs will continue in Missouri and throughout the
Midwest. Although most of the nation's meth is made at a small number of
large drug labs in Mexico and California, Missouri and the states it borders
accounted for more than half of the meth-lab raids and related seizures last
year.

The push to further restrict sales of the pills was made at the close of a
four-day meth summit here, in a panel discussion attended by many of
Missouri's top meth investigators and experts. Police said that Missouri
must follow the lead of Oklahoma, which this month adopted a new law that
labels most pseudoephedrine remedies "scheduled narcotics," sold only at
pharmacies and only if customers agree to have the purchases - and their
identities - recorded in a statewide database.

Police concede that Oklahoma's law will inconvenience shoppers, but they say
it is the only way to shut down Missouri drug labs.

"We have an epidemic, and epidemics call for drastic measures," said John
Jordan, sheriff of Cape Girardeau County.

Jordan said that if Jefferson City lawmakers refuse to make pseudoephedrine
a scheduled narcotic, they must think of a way to finance Missouri's meth
war - a fight that is fought largely on federal funds that are expected to
expire soon.

One federal-funded program struggling to find a new revenue source disposes
of the hazardous ingredients and byproducts associated with meth, and trains
police in how to safely dismantle drug labs. The program needs about
$800,000 every year to keep operating. Federal funding for the effort, along
with direct federal aid to Missouri drug task forces, is expected to end
soon as Washington shifts more money to homeland security programs, said a
top Missouri Highway Patrol officer.

But police say the need for funding those programs and general fears about
the dangers that drug labs pose to meth cooks, their children and the police
would disappear if Missouri followed Oklahoma's lead.

"You can't solve the problem of murder. You can't solve the problems of
burglary or child abuse. But the meth-lab problem has an answer, and it's
staring everyone in the face," said Detective Jason Grellner, commander of
the Franklin County drug task force and a leader of the drive to regulate
pseudoephedrine.

Grellner admits that there is no easy answer to the meth-use problem. He
said that addicts will find meth no matter how cold pills are regulated, but
that tight controls could force meth to be imported like cocaine and heroin.
Labs would disappear and police would have more resources to fight meth
trafficking, he said.

The Oklahoma law met with stiff opposition from pharmaceutical companies and
industry groups, which contended that the tight controls would inconvenience
law-abiding consumers who simply want to stay healthy. Critics of the law
said that most meth is made from cold pills illegally smuggled from Mexico
and Canada, and that this supply wouldn't be affected by making
pseudoephedrine a scheduled narcotic.

But police attending the meth summit said that drug companies are looking to
protect to profits, not people. The pharmaceutical industry has "a moral
responsibility" to stop their products from being used to make meth, says
Duane Nichols, who works for the White House Office of National Drug Control
Policy in Kansas City.

Nichols said, "When do their concerns about market share cross the line into
complicity? I don't know where that line is, but the pharmaceutical
companies are close to it."

Although it's unlikely that Missouri legislators will take up the issue this
year, police promised to press lawmakers to adopt the Oklahoma law next
year. At a press conference here, Missouri Gov. Bob Holden, who organized
the summit, endorsed the effort.

"We will continue to look at ways to tighten up our laws on meth
ingredients," Holden said. "If we get legislation, I will support it."