HEARINGS TURNED THE TIDE FOR RESTRICTING DRUG SALES

Last year, the notion of slapping tight limits on the sale of popular cold
medications used to make methamphetamine was about as politically popular
as influenza.

Rep. Clel Baudler and Marvin Van Haaften, Iowa's drug czar, couldn't even
get a bill out of committee. Retailers and drug companies bottled up the
idea and convinced lawmakers to swallow a much weaker law.

Fast forward to last Tuesday.

Van Haaften and Baudler are standing behind Gov. Tom Vilsack on the Capitol
steps. The governor is putting his name on legislation that would require
Iowans to find a pharmacy, show a government ID and sign a logbook to get a
box of Tylenol Cold tablets.

By all accounts, it is the toughest law of its kind in the country
restricting access to pseudoephedrine, a common nasal decongestant that
doubles as the most critical meth ingredient.

It passed the House and Senate without a single dissenting vote.

"Last year I didn't even get the bill introduced," said Van Haaften, a
former Marion County sheriff who now heads the Governor's Office of Drug
Control Policy. "I'm a little amazed."

So what happened?

"I think people became aware of what was going on," said Baudler, a retired
state trooper from Greenfield who legislates with his boots on.

"As people started focusing on the problem and the solution, I think that's
what moved it."

Just a couple of months ago, many lawmakers believed Baudler and his allies
wanted to go too far. After all, tough pseudoephedrine limits would force
rural residents to drive miles for over-the-counter medications, anger
hometown merchants and annoy thousands of Sudafed-seeking Iowans.

Even Baudler, at one point, appeared ready to settle for a weakened
measure. That's before he held hearings on the issue that apparently turned
the tide.

Legislators heard from law officers sworn to bust up and clean up hundreds
of meth labs, never knowing what they'll face when they break through the door.

They heard about children hooked on the drug or harmed by its manufacture.
They saw photos of Iowans transformed from smiling sons and daughters into
gaunt ghosts staring out from police mug shots.

Former meth cookers told them only tough restrictions would shut down labs.
A similar Oklahoma law led to a more than 50 percent drop in meth lab seizures.

Then legislators heard from constituents and many found out their initial
read on public opinion was wrong. Dozens of interest groups lobbied for
tight restrictions. Local governments passed their own ordinances just in
case a legislative solution fell through. Critics were outnumbered.

Lawmakers who worried about going too far now wanted to go as far as
possible. Baudler said backroom arm-twisting wasn't necessary in the end.
Retailers settled for an exemption allowing them to sell small doses of
liquid and gel cap medicines. But they'll have to check IDs and track sales.

It took the House and Senate just two hours to send the bill to Vilsack.

"There was no pulling or tugging," Baudler said. "I think that Iowans felt
enough is enough. We're dealing with a runny nose versus officers' lives
and those of victims and their families."

Now lawmakers just have to figure out how to adequately fund drug treatment
programs and stop interstate traffickers that smuggle in most of the meth
used and sold in Iowa.

BONDS VS. BAUDLER: Fresh from his pseudoephedrine triumph, Baudler is ready
to take on steroid use in baseball.

" I could fix it real easy," he said.

"Everybody after the game, whatever game you choose, or every game, takes a
drug test. If anybody fails, from the bat boy to the owner, all the profits
from that game go into the drug testing program. None of them go to the
players. None of them go to the owners -- the beer sales, the pop sales,
the hot dogs, the souvenirs.

"If you want to hit 2,000 home runs, you go ahead and take anything you
want. But you're not going to get a nickel. That's a simple solution to a
complicated problem."

Barry Bonds could not be reached for comment.