METH BILLS MAY MAKE IT HARDER TO BUY COLD MEDICINE

If Mississippi follows Oklahoma's lead, getting relief from the common cold
will become slightly more complicated.

Hidden in some popular cold medicines is pseudoephedrine, a chemical that's
part of the recipe for cooking methamphetamine, a highly potent illegal
drug that gives users instant and long-lasting euphoria.

Methamphetamine - also called speed, crank and ice - was popularized by
bikers and truckers in the late 1980s. Since then, it has spread across the
nation, leaving a trail of wrecked lives, orphaned children and
environmental contamination.

Addicts and drug peddlers cook the chemicals in their homes or in hotels,
exposing themselves, their children and their neighbors to potential
explosions. Over the last few years, law enforcement officials have seized
thousands of clandestine labs and the cleanup - at an average of $4,000 per
lab - has been costly to taxpayers.

Gov. Haley Barbour is urging lawmakers to make it tougher to purchase
over-the-counter cold remedies that contain pseudoephedrine. In his State
of the State address, Barbour called meth a "horrible plague on our state."

The governor also wants tougher penalties for those who manufacture or
traffic the drug in the presence of children.

Florida, Iowa, New Mexico and South Dakota are among the states that
recently have enacted tougher penalties for methamphetamine. Some target
sales, some target production and some target people trying to purchase
cold medicines.

Iowa's law makes it illegal to buy more than two packages of
pseudoephedrine at a time. A bill pending in the Mississippi House would
make it illegal to purchase more than four packages at a time.

That's not going far enough, says Senate Judiciary B Committee Chairman
Gray Tollison, D-Oxford. Tollison supports a Senate bill that would add a
middleman to the purchase process. The bill would require a pharmacist or
assistant to hand the cold medicine to consumers. A customer would have to
present identification, but no prescription would be needed.

The legislation was based on a new Oklahoma law that has brought an 80
percent drop in methamphetamine lab seizures.

Tollison acknowledged enacting the law would be inconvenient, but he said
it's a burden worth bearing for the greater good.

Stamping out meth abuse appears to be one of the few issues on which
lawmakers and the governor agree, and with such widespread support, a
stronger law is likely to pass.

Tollison is scheduled this week to hold hearings on a slew of meth bills.
There are at least 10 this session.

Some of the proposals would:

. Make it a felony to break into a tank with the intent to steal anhydrous
ammonia, an ingredient in methamphetamine.

. Enhance the penalties for boobytraps set by meth addicts to evade law
enforcers.

. Prohibit the state from paying for dental services for inmates who are
meth addicts. The drug decays the user's teeth.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, D-Brookhaven, said personal experiences led her to
file the bill that would make it a felony to break into an anhydrous
ammonia tank. Hyde-Smith, who lives on a farm, said thieves routinely break
into her tanks. She said the tanks are empty.

"Several people have been arrested in my front yard," she said.