DRUGS FROM DRUGS

Alabama has a drug problem.

According to police and legislators, our citizens are doing some
old-fashioned Southern home cookin', but it ain't biscuits they're serving.

Meth labs are popping up all across the state, investigators say,
particularly in rural areas. Recipes are just a Google away, and most of
the ingredients can be found at grocery stores and pharmacies.

It's one of those ingredients that has state lawmakers concerned.

Pseudoephedrine is a common chemical in over-the-counter cold medicines
like Sudafed. It's also a key in making methamphetamine.

The substance is already heavily regulated by most states, including
Alabama. Any medicine containing 60 milligrams of pseudoephedrine per
tablet as its sole active ingredient must be kept behind the counter.

Stores can't sell such products as loose tablets in bottles, but must
package them in those annoying blister packs (because meth cooks apparently
don't have time in their busy days to pop them out). You can't buy more
than three packages, or 9 grams, of pseudoephedrine.

But that's not enough, according to state Sen. Lowell Barron, D-Fyffe,
state Rep. Frank McDaniel, D-Albertville, and dozens of co-sponsors. They
want to require anyone purchasing pseudoephedrine-containing medicines to
sign a register and present photo identification.

A few obvious points come to mind. If you're making and selling crystal
meth, you probably know where to obtain a fake ID. Virtually everyone in
this town knows how to get one.

This still doesn't stop anyone from sending several of their
friends/customers to buy a few packages for them.

If police are scanning these registers for people buying cold medicine in
multiple locations, that's a ridiculous invasion of individual medical
privacy. If they already have evidence that someone is making crystal meth,
they should obtain a search warrant based on that.

In short, this law does little to nothing to combat drug abuse and
trafficking while burdening law-abiding consumers and merchants.

McDaniel's version of the bill, which the House passed Tuesday, goes even
further in its stupidity. It would allow retailers to sell only two
packages of pseudoepedrine-containing medicines, or 6 grams, at a time, and
would require buyers to be at least 18.

It would place the same restrictions on tablets containing ephedrine (a
close chemical cousin). And it would ban the sale of any such medicines
that aren't formulated in a way to prevent their use in manufacturing meth
by Oct. 1, 2009.

So unless enough states jump on the dumbwagon to induce pharmaceutical
companies to reformulate their drugs, Alabamians had better eradicate the
common cold by 2009.

But if they're serious about curbing meth use, there's an easy solution.
(Sarcasm ahead, folks.)

The War on Drugs has long been based on racial and ethnic prejudices, since
"Reefer Madness" told tales of pot-addled blacks and Hispanics raping white
women.

Drug warriors could update those tales for the 21st century, and spread the
reputation that meth is a "gay drug."

Recent reports out of New York linked meth-fueled sex parties to a possible
new, virulent strain of AIDS in gay communities. Add that to the already
idiotic D.A.R.E. curriculum, and homophobic Southern teenage boys would
volunteer to raid meth labs themselves.

Ridiculous? Of course. We're not serious; this is a little exercise in
reductio ad absurdum. But it's no less ridiculous than laws in question.

Focus on treatment programs proven to work. Encourage economic development
in poor rural counties housing meth producers. Provide young people with
honest, accurate information about the real dangers of methamphetamine.

But keep your damn hands off our Sudafed.