OFFICIALS LOOKING AT KEY INGREDIENT IN METH

N.C. Attorney General, Some Legislators Considering Ways To Inhibit
Purchases Of Cold Medicine

RALEIGH -- State officials moved last year to impose tougher sentences on
people who make methamphetamine. Now they're turning their attention to a
main source of the drug: medicine for the common cold.

Pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in medicines to relieve congestion,
allergies and other cold symptoms, is also the key ingredient for
methamphetamine. Attorney General Roy Cooper and legislators from western
counties are looking at limiting the sale of tablets that include
pseudoephedrine.

"We have to cut this dangerous drug off at the source, and criminals can't
make methamphetamine if they can't get enough of the key ingredient,"
Cooper said. "I want limits that are as strong as we can have."

No bill has been filed in the General Assembly, but legislators could have
several choices if they chose to limit purchases. They could require that
the medicines be kept behind pharmacists' counters, that consumers present
identification or that consumers be able to buy only a few packets at a time.

Any limit could be a burden on businesses and consumers, but supporters say
that it might be a burden worth bearing.

"I support strengthening the law, but we have to make sure that we don't
damage the retail merchants with any unforeseen consequences," said Rep.
Mitch Gillespie, R-McDowell.

Cooper said that any proposal would focus on tablets because few if any
methamphetamine cooks use liquid caplets.

David Work, the executive director of the N.C. Board of Pharmacy, said that
even tablets are an inefficient way to produce amphetamines. Work said that
a 180-mg tablet might contain only 30 mg of pseudoephedrine, and extracting
the active ingredient is far less efficient than illegally buying pure
pseudoephedrine.

"You can make butter from skim milk, but why would you?" Work asked. "It's
a personal conduct problem more so than a substance problem."

Still, methamphetamine use has turned out to be enough of a problem that
several other state legislatures are considering limiting the access to any
medicine with pseudoephedrine.

Oklahoma passed a law last April, and bills have been filed in Arizona,
Iowa, Missouri, North Dakota and other states, as well as in the U.S. Senate.

Oklahoma officials credit the law with helping to cut the number of meth
labs by at least 70 percent.

By this fall, they're hoping to have a statewide database of people buying
pseudoephedrine to prevent pharmacy-hopping.

"They (pharmacists) will know if someone buying two boxes was just across
the street buying two boxes. They'll have real-time data," said Mark
Woodward, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics.

N.C. authorities first discovered meth labs in 1999, when they found nine.
They found 322 in 2004 and are on pace to find 400 in 2005.

The creation of methamphetamine causes toxic waste and hazardous fumes.