HOW TO SHUT DOWN METH LABS

Oklahoma state trooper Nik Green was caught on his vehicle's video camera
with a gun to his head, pleading for his life. He had investigated a car
parked beside a road and found a meth cook at work. The camera watched as
the officer was blown away.

The murder so enraged Oklahomans that, despite pharmaceutical companies'
objections, state legislators unanimously passed a law banning
over-the-counter sale of Sudafed and other decongestants that contain
pseudoephedrine, which is used in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamine.

Ten months after the law took effect, meth lab seizures in Oklahoma had
dropped by more than 80 percent. The state averaged 105 math lab busts per
month before the law. By November the number had dropped to 19.

That result hasn't gone unnoticed. "Oklahoma changed everything," said
Missouri lawman Jason Grellner, who is leading a 12-state lobbying effort
in the Midwest to pass similar laws. "What states need to decide now," he
told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "is whether to get on the train that
Oklahoma led out of the station, or get run over by it. Whoever doesn't
pass it is (going to) be stuck with a lot of meth cooks."

In the same story Keith Rutledge, Arkansas' state drug czar, cautioned that
laws restricting over-the-counter drug use won't eliminate drug use. "But
if we make it impossible to get cold pills, we eliminate the meth lab
problem. That means we eliminate the danger to children who grow up in
these places; we eliminate the threat to law enforcement; we eliminate the
environmental damage each of these labs cause."

Oklahoma's law goes beyond limiting sales of cold medicines. It also
requires that the drugs be sold only in pharmacies, and the buyer's ID and
signature are required. And it obviously works.

Although there's been a bill draft request in Montana for a law restricting
the sale of decongestants, it has yet to be introduced. During a year
remarkable for how many pieces of legislation are pending, either
introduced or as draft requests, sale restrictions could get lost in the
shuffle.

Let's hope not. Montana should join a lot of other states and climb aboard
that train.