OFFICIALS AIM TO LIMIT THE USE OF METH

Hoping to stem the creep of methamphetamine across Wisconsin's borders,
state officials are exploring laws to restrict sales of the drug's key
ingredient.

Meth makers, or cooks as they are called, extract pseudoephedrine from cold
pills to produce the highly addictive drug.

Last year in Oklahoma - one of the states most besieged by the drug -
lawmakers made pseudoephedrine a Schedule V drug, which means that products
containing the drug must be sold from behind pharmacy counters. The law,
which also limits how much of the drug consumers can buy, appears to have
reduced meth production there significantly.

On Thursday, Minnesota lawmakers passed similar legislation.

And Illinois passed a less restrictive law.

Establishing a tough law in Wisconsin is critical to stop the state from
becoming a "meth island" attracting producers and users from other states
because ingredients would be easier to get, Attorney General Peg
Lautenschlager said.

But some grocers oppose a law that would require a pharmacist to hand out
cold pills, saying voluntary limits should work.

Yet a recent pseudoephedrine shopping spree by The State Journal proved
voluntary limits aren't always enforced.

High price for everyone Some say the rush from meth is the best feeling in
the world.

But methamphetamine users also feel paranoid and can hallucinate long after
the high burns off, said Shawna Kovach, director of L.E. Phillips Libertas
Treatment Center in Chippewa Falls.

Once the rush wears off, users sink into depression well before the
chemical leaves the system, so binging is a frequent problem. As use
continues, the body develops a tolerance and eventually the person can no
longer feel high, but still needs the drug to get back up, Kovach said.

Meth can also trigger violent and aggressive behavior.

Among its most alarming side effects is "battery acid brain" - permanent
deterioration severe enough to decrease cognitive skills in addition to
wiping out the ability to feel pleasure naturally, Kovach said.

Michael Scott, a former police officer and UW-Madison Law School assistant
professor, said addiction to meth, also known as "crank," "ice," and
"crystal," comes with a high price for everyone.

It's expensive to treat meth addicts, clean up the toxic labs and fight the
crimes connected to use of the drug, he said.

Meth is made from products available at hardware, pharmacy and grocery
stores, so it's easy to obtain and cheap, he said.

Diverting the flow In Wisconsin, St. Croix County near the Minnesota border
has the worst problem, said Tina Virgil, in charge of the state's Division
of Criminal Investigations narcotics office in Madison. From there, the
most affected counties stretch slightly east and south to just below La
Crosse, she said.

But the drug has shown up in virtually every county, Virgil said.

"Small box labs can be put in vehicles, hotels and motels, apartments and
in garages," she said. "A meth lab here in Dane County was located in a
two-car garage on the West Side."

Those fighting its spread say it's essential to get on top of the problem now.

"I think methamphetamine is the most serious problem in northwestern
Wisconsin," said Rep. Scott Suder, R- Abbotsford, who heads the Assembly
Committee on Criminal Justice and Homeland Security.

He and other legislators would like to limit the sale of pseudoephedrine
products to two or three packages a person. He'd also like to create a law
sending people convicted of meth-related crimes to a boot camp similar to
one in Minnesota.

It's important to bring the pharmacy and grocery industries to the table
when discussing legislation, he said.

Chris Decker, executive vice president of the Pharmacy Society of
Wisconsin, said his organization would support a law that made
pseudoephedrine a Schedule V drug, but added that it doesn't necessarily
have to be a pharmacist handing it out.

Sales limit Brandon Sholz of the Wisconsin Grocers Association said
limiting products with pseudoephedrine to stores with pharmacists would be
unnecessary and inconvenient.

"That means you have to go to a pharmacy to buy the drug," he said. "Some
towns have pharmacies that close at 5 or 6 p.m."

While the association would support a measure that puts the drug behind a
service counter, he thinks voluntary measures could work.

But on Wednesday, several stores, including two Copps Food Stores in
Madison, sold more than the posted three-box limit of cold medicine.

One sold six boxes of Sudafed in which the only active ingredient is
pseudoephedrine. The other sold seven boxes of products that included
pseudoephedrine. All can be used to make methamphetamine.

Roundy's, which owns Copps, didn't explain the lapses.

"Roundy's is committed to continuing our voluntary cooperation in an effort
to limit the sale of these products to the recommended limit," spokeswoman
Colleen Stenholt said.

Ron Edgmon, president of the Oklahoma Grocers Association, said his group
supported Oklahoma's legislation from the start. "It decreased the meth
labs by about 70 percent," he said. "So, by far, the benefits offset the
negatives."

Edgmon said there are still plenty of cold products allowed on grocers'
shelves - those that contain pseudoephedrine in gel form, which can't be
used to make pseudoephedrine, and cold products made with another chemical
such as phenylephrine.

Pfizer supports laws regulating Sudafed with pseudoephedrine, which it
makes, largely because the methamphetamine problem is so serious,
spokeswoman Erica Johnson said.

Laws passed by other states have not worked as well as Oklahoma's due to
"smurfing," Kovach said, a practice in which people go from store to store
buying a couple packages until they have enough.

Kovach said laws that put pseudoephedrine behind service counters instead
of in pharmacies doesn't do enough.

"It's already been approved in other areas, and it's failed miserably," she
said. "We don't want to fail."

Under current Missouri and Illinois law, retailers cannot sell more than
two boxes of pseudoephedrine pills in a single transaction, and they must
take steps to deter shoplifting. But police in those states say smurfing
has kept meth cooks in business.

Kovach said that because people exposed to methamphetamine are paranoid,
they won't sign ledgers kept in pharmacies. And they won't show their
identification, as some legislation including the one passed in Minnesota
require.

Scott said that from a policing perspective, the law must not put a heavier
burden on police departments.

"Seizing labs will ultimately be ineffective," he said. "They are too easy
to set up, and there are too many of them. The real efforts have to be in
control of the chemicals and treatment of the condition."

Lautenschlager would also like to see a tougher penalty for making the
highly explosive drug around children.

In addition, education, which the Justice Department has long furnished, is
crucial, she said.

And with the White House planning to cut back federal funding to state
policing agencies, Lautenschlager said, lawmakers must back any new law
with money.

The federal government isn't likely to enact a nationwide law.

In January, Sens. Jim Talent, R-Mo., and Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called
for a federal version of the Oklahoma law. But the White House Office of
National Drug Control Policy has indicated that pseudoephedrine controls
are a matter best left to state legislatures.

Although the meth problem has yet to reach epidemic proportions in
Wisconsin, Kovach said, without legislation, it's coming.

"The message needs to go out," she said. "This is killing people."