Washington Mo. Attacked by Uber Liberal Blog - Huffingotn Post

Anthony Papa

Communications specialist for the Drug Policy Alliance

Turning Cold Medicine into a Controlled Substance?

Posted: July 21, 2009 04:34 PM

Should common chemicals found in cold medications such as pseudoephedrine be made into a controlled substance? I don't think so. But, the city council of Washington, MO disagrees.

Earlier this month they became the first local government in the country to require a prescription for cold medications that contain pseudoephedrine -- a substance that can be used to manufacture methamphetamine. The unprecedented move came out of the city counsels frustration caused by the inaction of the Missouri Legislature to combat methamphetamine use and abuse. The ACLU quickly took a position against the anti-meth ordinance

As it stands now, consumers with colds across the country must present a photo ID and sign a log in order to purchase cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine.

The ordinance created by the city council has attracted interest from other cities that want to follow them. This sets a dangerous precedent. There are an estimated 34 different chemicals found in common household products such as lighter fluid, road flares and matches that can also be used to make meth. In the future are they going to declare that these chemicals can also become controlled substances?

The war on drugs has created convenient vehicles of looking tough on crime while hiding being the shield of public safety. But that shield gets worn down when our basic rights are curtailed through its use. In 2006 a federal law went into effect that forced cold sufferers to jump through ridiculous hoops to purchase what were originally over-the-counter medications. Customers now have to show photo identification and sign logs that are monitored by the police.

The manufacture, trafficking and abuse of meth have jumped to the forefront of national concern as the latest U.S. "drug epidemic." Cover stories depict meth as "America's Most Dangerous Drug." Alarmist media coverage of the dangers of meth and the draconian political responses that followed are reminiscent of the public reaction to crack cocaine in the 1980s. A new federal government Meth/Drug Hot Spots program was soon implemented. It offered local and state agencies almost $400 million to find and eradicate meth labs. Through financial incentives, policing policies were increased to take advantage of this new federal cash cow, all in the name of stopping the meth epidemic.

Now desperate measures are being enacted to tackle this "high priority"
problem -- measures that sometimes invade the privacy and civil liberties of citizens in ways that seem far removed from the war on drugs. Recent studies by several policy organizations such as the Sentencing Project have questioned the very existence this so-called epidemic, busting many of the myths perpetuated by the media. The studies concluded that meth is actually one of the rarest of illegal drugs used, with its use declining among youth, stabilizing among adults and demonstrating no increase in first-time users.

Furthermore, even governmental data dispute the existence of an epidemic. We need to invest scarce public resources into educating the public about the use of meth and providing high quality treatment options to fight addiction, not create needless legislation or layer on ineffective bureaucratic busy work.

The ordinance implemented by the Washington, MO city counsel leads to the further erosion of precious civil liberties. It might not be apparent now, but neither was our right to not be hassled when buying cold medicine before the law changed.

Anthony Papa is the author of 15 to Life and a communications specialist for the Drug Policy Alliance

Why We Don't Have Addiction-Free Cold Pills

Methland, Lobbying, and Why We Don't Have an Addiction-Free Decongestant

Category: Drugs
Posted on: July 30, 2009 9:48 AM, by Mike

I just finished reading Methland by Nick Reding. While the book focuses on the relationship between methamphetamines and the socioeconomic disintegration of rural areas*, this section about the interplay between lobbying and the failure to develop and produce an amphetamine that has decongestant activity but doesn't raise heart rate or possess addictive side effects was truly shocking (italics mine):

Mirror imaging is a process whereby a chemical's molecular structure is reversed, moving, for example, electrons from the bottom of a certain ring to the top, and vice versa. Pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and methamphetamine are already near mirror images of one another. To make meth from ephedrine, it is necessary to remove a single oxygen atom from the outer electron ring. Thus ephedrine and methamphetamine not only look the same under a mass spectrometer, but both dilate the alveoli in the lungs and shrink blood vessels in the nose-hence ephedrine's use as a decongestant while raising blood pressure and releasing adrenaline. The key difference is that meth, unlike ephedrine, prompts wide-scale releases of the neurotransmitters dopamine and epinephrine..... More..........

http://scienceblogs.com/mikethemadbiologist/2009/07/methland_lobbying_and_why_we_d.php

Public hearing set for prescription law in Jefferson County

By Christine Byers

ST. LOUIS POST-DISPATCH

Friday, Jul. 31 2009

HILLSBORO — Jefferson County council members want to hear what the public has
to say before moving ahead with a proposal to require prescriptions for some
cold and allergy medications that can be used to make meth.

A public hearing has been scheduled for 7 p.m. Aug. 18 at the County Council
chambers.

County Executive Chuck Banks proposed the idea of requiring a prescription for
products containing pseudoephedrine, such as Claritin D or Sudafed, shortly
after Washington, Mo., City Council members approved the measure there earlier
this month.

Banks said he wants to ensure that everyone who can write a prescription,
including nurse practitioners, is covered by the bill and wants to learn
whether some forms of pseudoephedrine products should be excluded from the bill
if they cannot be converted into meth.

"We are not trying to keep anyone from getting medication, we're trying to
restrict meth cookers from getting access to the ingredient they need," Banks
said.

Washington council members did not make exceptions for pseudoephedrine products
in its ordinance — the first of its kind in the nation. Franklin County Sgt.
Jason Grellner said exceptions serve as loopholes and all pseudoephedrine
products can be turned into meth.

Several organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the
Consumer Healthcare Products Association, have contacted Washington city
officials urging them to repeal the ordinance. Council members will vote Monday
on whether to do so.

Meanwhile, momentum seems to be building in surrounding cities such as Union,
St. Clair and Sullivan, where officials have begun considering similar
ordinances.

Banks said that should Jefferson County approve such an ordinance, he wants it
to be something surrounding counties can use.

"Even if we don't pass the ordinance, at least we will have brought the issue
back to the forefront," Banks said.

Oklahoma : Meth lab busts sky-rocket in 2008.

More evidence that invasive I.D. and Sign programs failing:

Meth lab busts sky-rocket in 2008.



Benton County,Arkansas- It's only the first week of March, but already this year, the Benton County,Arkansas Sheriff's Office has shut down ten meth labs. That's more than all of 2007.

It's an alarming statistic for Benton County,Arkansas-ten meth lab busts in just a two month time frame.

Deputy Doug Gay said, "I don't think there's a law enforcement agency in the midwestern U.S. that would dispute that. That that's the drug of choice and it's the one that's given us, really, the most problems."

Arkansas and states like Missouri and Oklahoma have adopted laws in recent years to make the sale of products used to make methamphetimine, like ephredrine, harder to buy in large quantities. Investigators say meth production didn't subside for long.

Deputy Gay said, "Where there's a will, there's a way. There's that supply and demand issue going on. As long as you have demand, somebody's going to figure out a way to supply it."

Anyone who buys ephredrine has to provide picture ID and signature. That puts them in a database or network for retailers to keep track of who's buying how much, and how often they're buying it. Manufacturers have found a new twist to circumvent the law-they have their meth users buy those raw materials for them. The users spread out to multiple retailers, purchase the maximum amount of ephredrine allowed by law just often enough to stay under the radar.

Deputy Gay said, "...it can grow exponentially for one manufacturer."

Washington and Benton counties,Arkansas are 2 of only 4 counties in the state with a Gulf Coast High Drug Trafficking Area designation-a designation with some federal backing to it. The program will do whatever it takes to knock meth out of Northwest Arkansas.

The Bentonville,Arkansas Police Department has made several large marijuana busts in the last month, but say meth is still the most dangerous drug they're dealing with in the region.

Stop a Cold in Just 12 Hours

Sari Harrar,

Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Mugs of tea, a bottle of ibuprofen, and a truckload of tissues won't get you through every case of the sniffles. Too often, the common cold turns into something more serious, zeroing in on your personal weak point to become a sinus infection, a sore throat, a nonstop cough, an attack of bronchitis, or an ear infection. And if you're prone to a particular complication -- thanks, perhaps, to an anatomical quirk (such as sinus obstructions), an underlying medical problem (early asthma, for example), or a history of a particular illness (childhood ear infections) -- your odds of getting sicker, faster, can skyrocket.

But complications aren't inevitable, new research shows. "With the right strategies, you can cut your risk significantly," says Gailen D. Marshall, Ph.D., M.D., director of the division of clinical immunology and allergy at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson................

Pharmacist Faces Drug Charges Pharmaceutical Processing

Oklahoma Board of Health Member And Pharmacist Faces Drug Charges
Pharmaceutical Processing
According to the indictment, Evans sold the drugs "with full knowledge that
60 to 70 percent of pseudoephedrine sales were diverted to the manufacture
of ...

Governor wants indicted board member Haskell L. Evans Jr. to resign
NewsOK.com
Prosecutors said investigators found "Evans marked up his pseudoephedrine
products more than 600 percent above the standard retail sales price, yet
remained ...
<http://newsok.com/governor-wants-indicted-board-member-haskell-l.-evans-jr.-to-resign/article/3388804

NPR: Small Town's Struggle In 'Methland'

All Things Considered, July 8, 2009

· The small town of Oelwein, Iowa, is home to 13 churches, a refurbished Main Street and a new library with free high-speed Internet.

It is also home to Roland Jarvis, a former meatpacking worker who burned his house down in 2001. Jarvis, who had a methamphetamine lab inside, was hallucinating that he saw black helicopters hovering overhead and, in a panic, dumped chemicals down the drain. The home went up in flames, and Jarvis was burned so badly that he begged the police to shoot him.