A CITY'S 'METH' MESS

The Fountain Valley City Council is considering an ordinance to limit the
number of over-the-counter cold medicines people can buy at any one time.

Really. We didn't make this up. It seems that ephedrine and
pseudoephedrine, contained in several cold remedies, are precursor
chemicals to methamphetamine, which is illegal. The council is concerned,
apparently, that people will buy armloads of cold medicine, crush the
pills, extract the ephedrine and have one of the raw materials for amateur
meth labs.

In fact, Police Captain Rod Gill man cited a case to Register reporter
Jennifer Perez wherein police discovered two men making methamphetamines
from ephedrine in the back of a van. Police believe the practice is common
enough for City Council member and policeman Chuck Conlosh to raise the
issue.

But there are several problems with this proposal. Foremost, it would limit
peoples' freedom in a way that's completely unjustifiable.

Furthermore, even the police and council members concede the proposal will
be unenforceable. You've got to love an effort to pass a law the proponents
know will be ineffective from the git-go. Council members admit that there
is no way to monitor purchases and customers could travel from city to city
or store to store to stock up on
medications.

Finally, it might not be as easy to make methamphetamine from cold
medicines as council members would have citizens believe.

We're not about to outline the process, but we talked to Alexander Shulgin,
a lecturer in chemistry at U.C. Berkeley with research experience in
chemical analogs. He says meth can be made from cold medicines, but it's a
much more complicated and expensive process than using straight ephedrine
or pseudoephedrine, which are available in pure form from pharmacy supply
houses and from Mexico. A serious drug dealer simply wouldn't mess with
cold remedies.

In addition, the Drug Enforcement Administration monitors sales of large
quantities of ephedrine and considers possession of large quantities of the
stuff (by those other than known pharmaceutical companies) as prima facie
evidence of intent to operate a meth lab.

What we have is a proposal nobody believes will ameliorate the
methamphetamine problem in any serous way. It will bother those who go out
and buy five or six brands of medicine during flu or allergy season, hoping
desperately that one of them will work this time. It won't inconvenience
meth lab operators.

What it all boils down to is this - a symbolic gesture of solidarity with
the Holy War on Drugs that likely will end up being little more than a
nuisance to law-abiding citizens.

Checked-by: (Joel W. Johnson)