From the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
The debate over Missouri’s growing methamphetamine problem took a major turn Wednesday, as police from around the state demanded that some common cold pills used to make the drug be classified as regulated narcotics available only at pharmacies.
At issue is a chemical called pseudoephedrine. It’s an active ingredient in more than 80 over-the-counter remedies that are sold everywhere from gas stations to grocery stores. But pseudoephedrine also is a key ingredient in most recipes for meth, a powerful stimulant often called ice, crystal or crank.
Missouri last year toughened existing regulations on how much pseudoephedrine a store could sell to an individual customer, and added new restrictions on where those cold pills could be displayed. As a result, meth cooks and their helpers now must shop at dozens of stores to get the thousands of pills needed to make even a few ounces of meth.
Police at the summit said that without tougher regulations, the explosive increase in small meth labs will continue in Missouri and throughout the Midwest. Although most of the nation’s meth is made at a small number of large drug labs in Mexico and California, Missouri and the states it borders accounted for more than half of the meth-lab raids and related seizures last year.
In other news, fire marshals demanded that lighters, matches, and magnifying glasses be sold only over the counter as they can be combined with an accellerant to intentionally start a fire, MADD is protesting against the availabilty of fruits and dandelions to young people, who can then ferment them and drink the contents, and the anti-gun lobby to restrict the sales of steel, lead, and wood.
Legitimate purposes and rights are a threat to security. Just stand in your stall and bleat a little until its your turn, veal.
