LOCKING UP COLD MEDICINES IS HOLDING DOWN METH LABS

TULSA, Okla. After years of locking up methamphetamine makers only to see
illegal drug labs multiply on urban stovetops and country roads, Oklahoma
got tough.

It locked up the meth makers' cold medicine.

The state banned over-the-counter sales of Sudafed and other decongestants
used to produce meth, and ordered that the medicines be placed behind
pharmacy counters. Ten months later, meth lab seizures in Oklahoma are down
more than 80 percent.

State officials believe many clandestine cooks have closed their kitchens
because of the crackdown on pseudoephedrine.

"To see the sort of diminution we've seen, there is absolutely no other
reason," said Lonnie, who heads Oklahoma's drug agency.

Now, other states are looking to lock up their pseudoephedrine, too.

Oklahoma and several other states have limited the amount of
pseudoephedrine customers can buy at one time, but Oklahoma went further by
requiring that the drug be dispensed by a pharmacist. Customers do not need
a prescription for pseudoephedrine, but they have to produce ID and sign
for the drug.

Oklahoma averaged 105 meth lab busts a month before the law took effect
last April. By November, the number had dropped to 19.

Those numbers persuaded Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon to push for a
similar measure there.

"This is a relatively small discomfort for the public," said Nixon, whose
state limited how much pseudoephedrine a customer could buy, only to see
the number of labs surge.

In Oklahoma, pseudoephedrine can no longer be sold in groceries and
convenience stores. Signs on empty drugstore shelves direct people looking
for relief from stuffy heads to the pharmacist. The law applies only to
pills containing pseudoephedrine. Gel and liquid forms, which normally are
not used to make meth, are still available over the counter.

Some people grumble when they will have to show ID, said Jim Brown, owner
of Freeland-Brown Pharmacy in Tulsa.

"But when you tell them why," he said, "they really don't object."

Meth-making has left ugly scars on communities large and small in Oklahoma.
Children have been found playing among the volatile and highly toxic waste
of their parents' drug making. Addicts haunt farmland, looking to steal
anhydrous ammonia fertilizer, which they use to convert pseudoephedrine
into potent high.

Oklahoma's law bears the names of three state troopers killed in
confrontations with suspected meth users. Among them was Nik Green, who
used to weep over the people he had arrested who were caught in meth's iron
grip, his widow said.

"He said, 'I really feel like this is one of Satan's tools,'" said Linda
Green, who helped push for the law after Green was shot while investigating
a suspicious vehicle on a rural road.

Along with legislators in Missouri, lawmakers in neighboring Arkansas,
Kansas and Texas get on board with the controls, I think you'll see
Oklahoma's numbers drop again," said Tom Cunningham, drug task force
coordinator for the Oklahoma District Attorneys Council.

Politicians in Washington, Idaho, Minnesota, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky,
Connecticut, Georgia and Tennessee have also pushed for laws requiring
pharmacists to dispense pseudoephedrine or will be considering such
legislation this year.

Oregon's pharmacy board in October approved restrictions patterned on the
Oklahoma law.