NEW LAWS GET TOUGH ON METHAMPHETAMINE

Last week, the Missouri Legislature signed some of the nation's
toughest anti-methamphetamine measures in the country.

It came not a minute too soon.

More than any other drug, the sale and use of methamphetamine have
ravaged our state.

Missouri has led the country for the past two years in the number of
clandestine labs shut down by police, recording 2,725 raids and
seizures last year.

Meth is a potent stimulant that can be injected, smoked or taken as a
pill. In recent years, use of the drug has exploded across the
Midwest, especially in the Show Me State with its central location,
plentiful rural areas and its many highways.

Tough laws are going to be needed to help curb the biggest drug
explosion since crack cocaine 15 years ago. These new laws should help
in that fight.

The first measure limits sales of over-the-counter drugs containing
ephedrine, pseudoephedrine or phenylpropanolamine as the sole active
ingredient -- such as Sudafed -- to two packages per purchase or no
more than 6 grams.

The current limit is three packages. Such products, intended to treat
colds and allergies, are the main ingredient in the illicit street
drug.

Stores will also have to keep such products behind the checkout
counter or within 10 feet of it and in clear view of a clerk. That
provision is intended to thwart shoplifting.

The second measure will make it a class A felony to manufacture
controlled substances in a residence occupied by a child or within
2,000 feet of a school. The unlawful release of anhydrous ammonia, a
fertilizer that is another key high-grade meth ingredient, into the
atmosphere will be a class B felony. If such a release causes a death,
it will be class A felony.

The bill also established the Missouri Sheriff's Methamphetamine
Relief Task Force consisting of five county sheriffs appointed by the
governor. The group will administer grants for anti-meth
initiatives.

Some drug companies protested the laws, saying that it would create a
hardship on chronic allergy sufferers. A few convenience store owners
in the state said they didn't like the government dictating how they
used prime retail space.

But the problems of methamphetamine should override those
concerns.

Targeting the user and maker has proved difficult, especially
considering that most of these so-called labs are really nothing more
than the trunk of someone's car or a bathroom. In other words, they
are highly mobile. Aiming such laws at cutting the meth-maker off from
the ingredients makes a good deal of sense.

These laws are needed. They will be a valuable tool in fighting one of
the state's biggest and most devastating problems.