ANTI-METH BILL

Legislation Should Target Users, Producers

Cold sufferers, be prepared. Buying a common over-the-counter
medication will become more bothersome under a proposal to limit
access to some cold remedies.

To combat methamphetamine use, legislation sponsored by Sens. Dianne
Feinstein, D-Calif., and Jim Talent, R-Mo., will force drugstores and
other outlets to take medicines containing pseudoephedrine off the
shelf and put them behind the counter with controlled prescription
drugs. Pseudoephedrine can be extracted from the medicine to make meth.

No prescription will be required (at least not in most of the nation
under the federal bill), but have the photo identification ready if
the proposal makes it into law.

Purchases will be limited to 7.5 grams or about 250 30-milligram pills
in a 30-day period. Consumers will also have to sign for their
Sudafed, Nyguil or other medicines - now easily available right off
the shelf - just as they do for controlled medications.

Access to the sales log is problematic. The intent of the law is to
limit sales of large quantities to disrupt meth production. This would
require sharing data and even police monitoring of legal purchases by
innocent Americans. Yet Americans generally rebel at unwarranted
police intrusions into their private lives and activities.

In one of two compromises that cleared the way for approval of the
proposal Friday by the Senate Judiciary Committee, the new rules will
not take effect until Jan. 1 2007, for products containing
pseudoephedrine in combination with other active ingredients. Where it
is the only active ingredient, the restrictions will be effective 90
days after enactment.

A second compromise allows states to enact stricter regulations as
many have already done. Some states impose age requirements on
purchases, although none has gone as far as Oregon in requiring a
doctor's prescription for the medicines, which will boost the cost of
health care there.

Grocery stores and other outlets without a pharmacist on duty will be
inconvenienced. States, working with the Drug Enforcement
Administration, will be allowed to license employers who are not
pharmacists to sell the medicines.

The proposal was tacked on to legislation funding federal science,
justice and other programs. A House version of the bill did not
include the meth restrictions. If the Senate passes its version, the
bills would have to be reconciled in a conference committee, where
there may be an opportunity to reject this misdirected solution that
hassles law-abiding citizens.