'METH' AND MERCHANTS

The N.C. Retail Merchants Association is concerned that the legislature
would inconvenience customers and pharmacists if it restricts sales of
common cold, allergy and sinus medications.

Well, that's just too bad.

The restrictions are needed to stop the distribution of pseudoephedrine, a
key ingredient in those medications, to criminals who "cook"
methamphetamine in crude laboratories. The criminals buy the
over-the-counter drugs in huge quantities, often sweeping shelves clean,
and then grind tablets to extract the needed ingredients.

In light of the scourge that meth is becoming, the merchants' lobbying
efforts are entirely inappropriate.

This impropriety is no more apparent than in the trailers where hopped-up
parents cook methamphetamine in the presence of their children. According
to sources cited in Monte Mitchell's heartbreaking story in Sunday's
Journal, one in four meth raids involves a home where children are exposed
to the dangerous fumes and sediments produced during meth cooking.

Attorney General Roy Cooper wants North Carolina to control sales of
medications with pseudoephedrine. He is yet to release his proposal, but he
is considering measures undertaken in Oklahoma. It is that kind of a
program that led the merchants to tell the Associated Press of their
opposition.

On this issue, legislators must just say no to the merchants, because the
merchants do not have a legitimate gripe. They can place these medications
behind a counter, limit sales to whatever reasonable volume the legislature
sets and keep track of all sales. These are reasonable measures that have
already had a big impact in Oklahoma.

The merchants argue that the meth cookers will just go someplace else for
their pseudoephedrine, maybe to the Internet. That hasn't happened in
Oklahoma, but even if it does happen here, it is no reason to continue to
make the drug conveniently available to these criminals. If the traffic
does move to the Internet, then Congress and federal authorities have new work.

The retail merchants are dead wrong on this.

It is sad that this good organization is so narrowly focused on its own
interests that it cannot see how much North Carolina needs to crack down on
meth cookers.