STOPPING METH BEFORE IT EXPLODES

It is alarming, if utterly predictable, that methamphetamine is getting an
increasing toehold in North Carolina.

The highly addictive drug, relatively simple to manufacture, has been the
scourge of Midwestern states for nearly a decade. Police are destroying a
growing number of meth-manufacturing labs in this state.

One reason methamphetamine use can mushroom quickly is that it can be made
from simple items fairly easily available for legal, even commonplace, uses.

A key ingredient is pseudoephedrine, marketed as Sudafed and a host of
generic cold and sinus remedies in drugstores, grocery stores and
convenience stores. You can walk into one of those stores or a big-box
discount retailer any hour of the day or night and buy a box -- or, in many
stores, an armload of boxes and go on your way.

That convenience is a boon to a cold-sufferer -- but also a boon to a meth
manufacturer.

Given that, the General Assembly should pass some version of a bill now
pending to circumscribe the sale of pseudoephedrine.

Many states already regulate such sales -- commonly, by limiting the pills
a consumer can buy at any one time. Often, pills are kept off the shelves,
and a customer must ask a clerk to retrieve them from behind a counter.
States may require a customer to show identification to buy the pills.

All of those are logical, common sense limitations. Yes, they add to the
inconvenience of the innocent, but the inconvenience is slight compared to
the scope of the problem they are intended to mitigate.

While we agree wholeheartedly with restrictions, we are concerned that the
bill filed last week is too restrictive. The pills could only be bought
from a pharmacist, who would ask for identification and require the
customer to sign a log.

That means no pharmacy, no Sudafed or generic equivalent.

Pharmacists worry about record keeping; other retailers worry about
limiting access (and, one assumes, loss of business). We are particularly
sympathetic to the argument that requiring a pharmacist to be involved
would make it unnecessarily difficult for people with a genuine need for a
simple but helpful medication. That includes, of course, the vast majority
of purchasers.

We can make great strides in combating methamphetamine without going that far.