A REASONABLE METHOD OF FIGHTING METH

The benefits of restricting cold remedy sales are worth the inconvenience.

With illegal meth labs proliferating unabated in Western Virginia, Gov.
Mark Warner last week sensibly did what state lawmakers this year failed to do:

He signed an executive order requiring drug stores and other retailers to
put over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines behind the counter and
restricting the amount a person can buy in a 30-day period.

The drugs contain ingredients used in making methamphetamine, a highly
addictive scourge of a drug easily manufactured in home labs that
themselves present a public danger because of their toxicity and volatility.

States that had been visited by this plague in advance of Virginia have
reduced the number of illegal labs dramatically by restricting the most
abused of these precursor drugs.

The Republican-dominated General Assembly responded to a surge in meth
abuse in rural Western Virginia by toughening legal standards and penalties
for its manufacture, a strategy championed by Attorney General Jerry
Kilgore before he resigned to run for govenor.

The Republican candidate continues to oppose regulating retail sales of
cold remedies, saying the rules will be a burden for small businesses,
particularly in rural areas.

But Virginia's rural communities are especially hard-hit by the wave of
meth manufacturing and addiction, and stand most in need of the relief that
Warner's action promises.

Luckily for them, Republican legislators do not feel bound by the party
standard-bearer's campaign rhetoric.

Before the governor signed his directive Thursday, House Speaker Bill
Howell and other GOP lawmakers said they will introduce legislation in the
2006 session to codify the major elements into law.

In preparing that legislation, a task force of legislators, pharmacists,
business people and law officers should look closely at other aspects of
the executive order, requiring consumers to show identification and sign a
register to buy their cold remedies.

The task force should determine whether registries have a large deterrent
effect in other states, and abandon the data-gathering if it is not
necessary. Government should intrude as little as possible in the private
lives of law-abiding citizens.