METH MAKERS CROSS LINE TO AVOID LAW, SHERIFFS SAY

WASHINGTON - Methamphetamine producers are buying ingredients in states
bordering Oklahoma to evade the state's strict controls, two sheriffs said
Thursday in calling for national legislation.

Sheriff Johnny Philpot of Sequoyah County, which borders Arkansas, said law
enforcement officials making meth-lab busts are finding sales receipts from
Arkansas.

"For Oklahoma's anti-meth effort to succeed fully, bordering states must
also control pseudoephedrine," Philpot said in a statement. "Frankly we
could benefit more from a national law."

Philpot's concern was among the reasons Rep. Dan Boren, D-Muskogee,
introduced legislation Thursday to impose federal controls on the sale of
cold and sinus medicine containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in
methamphetamine.

Oklahoma passed a law in April requiring that over-the-counter drugs
containing pseudoephedrine be obtained in a pharmacy; the law also limits
one person's purchases to nine grams a month.

The head of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics testified at a House committee
hearing in November that there had been a dramatic drop in the number of
meth labs seized since the law took effect.

At that hearing, a Kansas sheriff testified he had heard reports of
Oklahomans crossing into Kansas to buy medicines with pseudoephedrine.

Thursday, Sheriff Dennis King of Ottawa County, which borders Kansas and
Missouri, said lab seizures have dropped 75 percent in his county since the
Oklahoma law passed, but ingredients are still being brought in from
Arksansas and Kansas.

Former Oklahoma Rep. Brad Carson introduced similar legislation last year,
but it was stalled. Lawmakers might be more willing to pursue the issue in
this Congress.

Gov. Brad Henry, who was in Washington this week for a national governors
conference, told reporters 31 states have passed laws controlling meth
ingredient sales. But he said a national law would be more effective than a
"patchwork" of state laws.