LOBBYING FOR DRUG PUNKS

A few North Carolinians care more about profits and convenience than about
fighting an illegal drug that addicts, sickens, kills and pollutes.

A Senate-passed bill that would make it harder to buy the main ingredient
of methamphetamine has been sent to a subcommittee of the N.C. House
instead of to the floor for a vote.

The move came at the urging of grocery stores and other retailers that
profit from selling cold pills such as Sudafed. They've won allies among
some rural legislators, who say the folks back home want to keep buying
cold remedies at the nearest store.

No doubt some do. But other over-the-counter remedies can work as well, or
better. And it wouldn't take much foresight to buy decongestants elsewhere
and keep them on hand.

That minor inconvenience would also make it inconvenient for punks to buy
pseudoephedrine in quantity and cook it into a vicious drug.

Meth isn't merely a nasty high that ruins lives. Its production creates
poisons and poses the danger of fires and explosions. Children who got too
near to these labs have been injured.

It's a bitter irony that legislators who might help drug gangs come from
rural areas and the mountains -- places where meth has put down deep and
destructive roots. It's not for nothing that it's been dubbed, accurately
if insensitively, "hillbilly heroin."

The N.C. Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to place reasonable
restrictions on the sale of pseudoephedrine. It could be sold only from
behind the counter at pharmacies. Customers would have to show photo ID and
couldn't buy more than about a third of an ounce a month without a
prescription.

Those would be trivial hassles for honest people, and the benefits would be
life-saving. The states that have imposed similar restrictions have taken a
big bite out of the meth trade.

Attorney General Roy Cooper had it right. If the law passes, "There will
still be many ways to treat a bad cold," he said, "but there aren't many
ways to treat the brain damage of a small child in a meth lab."