"Have a Cold? Prove It, Then Sign Here"

THE DANGER OF METHAMPHETIME REGISTRIES

Need to know where your neighborhood meth dealer lives? I think not.
But the current trend in law enforcement thinks so. Six states
including New York are considering joining Tennessee, Illinois,
Montana and Minnesota in enacting a methamphetamine offender
registry. These registries will publicly display information about
methamphetamine users, makers and dealers that have been convicted of
their crimes. In validating their clarion call for registries, law
enforcement officials across the country have complained that the
toxic materials found from clandestine meth labs have poisoned
communities and destroyed property.

The registry trend follows the governmental implementation of making
methamphetamine trafficking and abuse a high priority problem. When
high priority is established, desperate measures are enacted that
sometimes invade the civil liberties of citizens that seem to have
nothing to do with the drug war.

The idea of using a data base that details the crimes of offenders is
not new. Sex offenders have been under the keen eye of the public
through on line registries in all 50 states for some time now. Not
too many people would argue against their use in this manner. After
all, we must protect our children from predators. But, the question I
ask is do we need the same type of protection in the prohibition of
methamphetamine?

In about 2004, methamphetamine jumped into the national consciousness
as the latest U.S. "drug epidemic." With covers stories that depicted
methamphetamine as "America's Most Dangerous Drug", alarmist media
coverage and draconian political responses to the dangers of
methamphetamine have been reminiscent of the public reaction to crack
cocaine in the 1980s.

At the same time the implementation of the federal governments
Meth/Drug Hot Spots program was born. It offered local and state
agencies almost 400 million dollars to find and eradicate meth labs
to end the threat of the meth drug epidemic. Through financial
incentives, policing policies were increased to take advantage of the
cash cow the federal government had created, all in the name of
stopping the epidemic.

However recent studies by several policy organizations like the
Sentencing Project questioned the existence this epidemic and have
shown that reality contradicts many of the myths perpetuated by the
media. Their findings concluded that methamphetamine is actually one
of the rarest of illegal drugs used, with its use declining among
youth, stabilizing among adults and demonstrating no increase in
first-time users. Furthermore, even governmental data disputes the
existence of an epidemic.

The war on drugs has created convenient vehicles of looking tough on
crime while hiding being the shield of public safety. But that shield
gets worn out when our basic rights are curtailed through its use.
For example, since the recent enactment of federal laws in several
states, cold sufferers now have to jump through ridiculous hoops to
purchase what were originally over-the-counter medications. You now
must show photo ID and sign a log in order to purchase cold and
allergy medicines containing pseuudoephedrine, a drug that can be
used to manufacture methamphetamine. There are an estimated 34
different chemicals that can be derived from materials like lighter
fluid, road flares and matches. Do we create similar laws to purchase them?

We need to put resources in educating the public about the use of
methamphetamine, not creating a public registry. It would be used
only as another law enforcement tool that will lead to the further
restriction and erosion of our civil liberties. It might not be
apparent now, but neither was our right to not be hassled to buy cold
medicine before the law changed.