MITIGATING METH

Our View - Fighting meth production is important, but wide-ranging solutions
should be searched for.

Those who are addicted to or manufacture methamphetamine may soon find their
habits a little harder to sustain.

Thanks to a bill making its way through the Senate, a curb in
methamphetamine use and production may be near.

If passed, medicines like Sudafed and Claritin-D will be taken off the
shelves of pharmacies and put behind the counter. No prescription will be
needed, but identification and a signature will be required.

The bill's passage, though, will certainly not mark the end of a problem
spiraling out of control in the United States.

Any benefits help, but there will likely not be large results. This does not
make the bill less important, though.

It's a matter of being realistic. Local law enforcement officers seem to be
thinking along those lines.

The focus of law enforcement groups on drugs should certainly continue to
include methamphetamine. Cocaine and marijuana make up the majority of drugs
in Lafayette County, but with its life-threatening effects, meth is not
something to be written off.

The largest effect of the bill will come in the shoplifting of medicines
containing the main ingredient of making meth -- pseudoephedrine. With no
items with the ingredient on the shelf, stealing will be largely curtailed
if not entirely stopped. If for that reason alone, the bill will be worth
its weight.

It should be noted, however, that many pharmacies did not wait for proposed
legislation to make the road to illegal drugs more difficult for meth
manufacturers. Day in and day out, they are obligated to and often do look
out for those customers with questionable pharmaceutical purchases.

They should be commended for their extra work to keep even a small amount of
drugs off the streets.

As commander of the Metro Narcotics Unit in Oxford Joey East pointed out,
those dealing in meth can simply go to different stores. Perhaps stores
should work toward a system in which they could be linked, showing those who
jump from store to store for the ingredients to their poison.