OKLAHOMA'S NEW LAW RIDS STATE OF METH LABS

Your editorial, "A growing menace" (Feb. 23), about the methamphetamine
scourge, rings all too familiar to me. As chief legal counsel for
Oklahoma's State Bureau of Narcotics, I helped draft and worked to pass our
new controls on tablet-form pseudoephedrine last year. The results of that
law have been immediate, dramatic and life-saving.

However, unlike you, I do not see it as a flaw in our law that it forces
meth cooks to neighboring states. On the contrary, I think it is a
testament to this law's effectiveness that it forces those criminals to
scoot just beyond its reach, and is merely evidence that other states that
receive these offenders should pass similar laws.

It is impossible to quantify, but I am sure that because of our new law, at
least one child who might have otherwise been exposed to meth wasn't; at
least one family that might have been decimated by this drug wasn't; at
least one adult who might be dead from the drug isn't. Whatever the
inconvenience of having to use gel caps or buy from a pharmacy, I remain
forever convinced it is well worth the trade.

Scott Rowland,

Oklahoma City, Okla.