Published July 11, 2010 by the South Bend Tribune
With its 659 methamphetamine lab busts last year, one must conclude that Michigan has a serious meth problem.
And Indiana? It has a meth crisis. More than 1,300 meth labs were seized by authorities in 2009.
The scourge is especially prevalent in northeastern Indiana, where five of the top 10 counties for meth busts are located. Elkhart County is No. 1.
Feeding the meth underground is the principal ingredient pseudoephedrine. It’s easily obtained over the counter in cold and allergy remedies.
Both Indiana and Michigan enacted laws several years ago to limit the amount of pseudoephedrine that may be bought. They require customers to show ID and to sign for decongestants that contain the ingredient.The laws are supposed to discourage abuse. They don’t work -- not in either state.
Buyers aiming to cook up a batch of meth simply go from pharmacy to pharmacy until they’ve scored enough. The practice has a name: smurfing.
Although there are pharmacy logs to record the purchases, the police legwork necessary to pick out patterns and initiate investigations is prohibitively demanding in most places.
Some states -- Michigan among them -- are trying to make purchase patterns more accessible to law enforcement by having pharmacies report on a computer database rather than in a logbook.
Critics call that reactive approach too little too late. While it helps police compile information, it doesn’t prevent abuse. The way to do that, they argue, is to make pseudoephedrine available strictly by prescription. It’s abused like a narcotic, so why not treat it like a narcotic?That made sense to lawmakers in Oregon in 2006 and Mississippi this year. Both states have enacted prescription laws.
Oregon’s problem was less than one-sixth of Indiana’s when it took Sudafed and other pseudoephedrine-containing medicines off the OTC list and made them prescription drugs. Oregon went from 192 pseudoephedrine busts the previous year to only 10 last year.
Not surprisingly, the pharmaceutical industry is vehemently opposed to making its biggest-selling OTC drugs available only by doctors’ orders. The industry is fighting back hard. According to a July 6 report by the Journal-Gazette in Fort Wayne, the pharm lobby spent $311,000 this spring opposing a bill in the Kentucky Legislature that would have made pseudoephedrine prescription-only.
The drug makers are protecting their very big bottom lines. That said, there also are drawbacks for consumers when the drugs are prescription-only. Requiring a role for doctors would raise health care costs. Furthermore, not everyone has a family doctor.
What’s the remedy? We think there is a third way -- one that, to our knowledge, hasn’t been tried.Why not give consumers a choice? Let those who regularly need to purchase pseudoephedrine-containing pills either get a doctor’s prescription or sign up for a pseudoephedrine drug card at their pharmacy.
A customer would be required to run the card through a card reader in order to make a purchase. A database would record the purchase and permit a limited number of purchases in a given time period.
Too much like "big brother"? Those who think so could use the doctor’s prescription option.
Too much like being "treated like a criminal" for having a head cold? We hope customers would realize that they were doing their part to fight the scourge of meth and its devastating consequences.
Too costly? The expense of implementing effective pseudoephedrine controls would be offset by savings. Communities pay now for law enforcement, cleanup of toxic meth lab sites, incarceration of offenders, rehabilitation of addicts and care of meth-addicted newborns.Successfully limiting pseudoephedrine purchase would entail a small inconvenience -- in much the same way that showing an ID when buying alcohol is a small inconvenience. Considering the seriousness of the problem, it isn’t too much to ask.