How To Outsource Meth Production
Government geniuses think they can just prohibit everything and the world will be all butterflies and rainbows. Of course, in the case of the controls on cold and allergy drugs, they're just making the meth trade better for Mexican drug lords. Barton Hinkle writes at reason:
This isn't mere speculation. It's exactly what happened in Oklahoma, which imposed restrictions on the sale of cold and allergy medication several years ago to combat meth trafficking there.Result? "Six and a half pounds of Mexican meth, also known as 'Ice,' has been taken off the street by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics," reported an Oklahoma City TV station last year. "It's the second meth bust in the last week." The story quoted the head of the state narcotics bureau, who said, "The No. 1 threat to the citizens in the state of Oklahoma is the Hispanic sell groups that have infiltrated rural Oklahoma." Oklahoma did not reduce consumption--it outsourced production. Some victory.
Third, the proposal targets the wrong thing. The problem is meth, not meth precursors. Cold and allergy remedies can be used to make meth, but so can soda bottles and coffee filters. Applying the fanatical logic of the nation's drug war, if restricting the sale of allergy medicines does not stop meth use--and it won't--the next step should be to track the sale of 2-liter soda bottles.
Fourth, limiting the sale of over-the-counter medicines, as Virginia officials are considering doing, almost inevitably will entrap law-abiding citizens who unwittingly violate purchase limits. Consider what happened to Sally Harpold, an Indiana grandmother who was hauled off in handcuffs, booked and embarrassed on the front page of the local paper a couple of years ago. As Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum reported, her crime--if you want to call it that--was "buying a box of Zyrtec-D allergy medicine for her husband, then buying a box of Mucinex-D decongestant for her daughter at another pharmacy less than a week later. That second transaction put Harpold six-tenths of a gram over Indiana's three-gram-per-week limit" for pseudoephedrine.
Most importantly, Hinkle writes, the proposed limits on OTC meds amount to dragnet surveillance. Dragnet surveillance is stuff like roadside checkpoints, NSA wiretaps, random drug testing (and I'll add TSA gropes) and abandons the notion of reasonable suspicion.
I have had a deviated septum since my nose was broken as a kid. I found that sudafed actually lets me breathe regularly in a normal basis. I used to take it about three to five days a week.
I would grab a bottle of a 100 pills at a time as part of my regular shopping.
Now with these new regulations in place -- I only get some if I'm desperate and can't breathe through my nose for days.
I have to now conform to the pharmacy hours, provide ID, and kiss the ass of a know-nothing pharmacy tech to get 24 pills.
I'm sorry -- but this is not how to impress me with effective government.
Jim P. at October 9, 2011 12:56 AM
LOL! I read the title of this entry and thought "meth" was "methane." Neat trick, if we could eat whatever we wanted and pass the resulting gas accumulation to someone else. Then I thought, "Perhaps Amy means that we export all our carb-laden, gas producing food to other countries.
Then I finally read the article. Concerning poor Sally Harpold, why is there a limit as to the amount of OTC remedies at all? If it's OTC, you should be able to buy as much as you want or think you need.
Patrick at October 9, 2011 1:06 AM
Offtopic, let's talk about women who sleep around too much.
Somebody do a treatment, I'm thinking Hathaway as the muse.
Crid [CridComment at gmail] at October 9, 2011 5:21 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2011/10/09/how_to_outsourc_1.html#comment-2562808">comment from Crid [CridComment at gmail]Saw that, Crid, and sent to a friend in Paris. I would have been happy to stay there. Would even have brought my own dustrag.
Amy Alkon at October 9, 2011 5:53 AM
The idea here is that we are all potential criminals in the eyes of the government.
so I have to show ID and sign a document under penalty of perjury that I am not going to make methamphetamine with the pills I buy to stop my nose running away.
I once made the joke that it's easier to get cocaine than sudafed. I don't think it's a joke any more.
brian at October 9, 2011 7:01 AM
There are some stories in the local paper today about how Austin is the American hub for the La Familia cartel. (statesman.com) Tried to link but the spam filter wouldn't let me. The cartels bring in the meth "precursors" from China through Mexican ports, manufacture it in Luvianos, then ship the methamphetamine and marijuana through Laredo and up I35. Then they use Austin as a distribution hub. (I35 also runs through Dallas and San Antonio- I can't imagine the amount of mexican meth being imported along that highway.)
ahw at October 9, 2011 7:09 AM
I live in Oklahoma and there is a push to make a prescription required for sudafed. Several small town pharmacies require it but I believe the AG said that wasn't allowed. The morons who are in favor of the rx restriction don't realize that doctors won't just call in the prescription, which is their main argument, that it won't inconvenience law abiding citizens. Even if that was true, then that means meth heads wouldn't have any trouble getting the rx either, they just call their dr. Fools.
Just a note on how stupid Oklahoma is in regards to criminalizing drugs... One woman was sentenced to 12 years for selling $31 of marijuana in front of her children (recently reduced to 8years after massive public outcry) but a woman high on meth and a few other drugs only received a split sentence, serving 15 years in prison after her week old baby was found dead in the washing machine while the methhead "slept". Spottedcrow and fiddler are the two women's names... Go to Tulsaworld.com to read about them if you are interested.
Casey at October 9, 2011 7:21 AM
"Applying the fanatical logic of the nation's drug war, if restricting the sale of allergy medicines does not stop meth use--and it won't--the next step should be to track the sale of 2-liter soda bottles."
Hinkle writes about this as speculative, but this sort of thing has already happened: For years, in Alabama it was necessary to show a government ID in order to purchase motor oil. It seems to have been repealed recently, or perhaps everyone just decided it was ridiculous and they no longer enforce it, but that law goes back to about 1998.
Patrick: It seems to me that there's a Luddite contingent within the War on Drugs that is attempting to use it to make all drugs as unavailable as possible. In the public debate over the past decade, there's been a huge blurring of the line between legal and illegal drugs. Said luddites would love to eliminate all OTC drug sales as a first step to making drugs generally unavailable to the public. I'm not sure who this group actually is; they seem to be an unholy marriage of far-left and far-right elements. But they're there, and very few media outlets, mainstream or alternative, have done any investigation of them or their influence in the War on Drugs.
Cousin Dave at October 9, 2011 7:46 AM
You are correct to cite the infringements on liberty by police and other authorities, especially by regulatory fiat. It remains that Barton Hinkle is being, um, rather free with "reason" in support of his point. No, 2-liter bottles are not the next step and can't be. It is production which has been decided must be interrupted, and this never requires control of every element thereof. An emotional appeal to absurdity is substituted for reason.
If I halt gasoline delivery, I don't have to regulate steering wheels.
I hope nobody is arguing for the local production of meth. That's the best current example of drug users' total abdication of responsibility, vs. the assertion of many that "legalization" will magically produce law-abiding citizens.
Radwaste at October 9, 2011 8:38 AM
Cousin Dave, that's very interesting -- and very frightening -- about the movement to make all OTC drugs available only by prescription.
I've heard of a similar movement to make all supplements available only by prescription as well. Very scary.
Patrick at October 9, 2011 8:59 AM
If people really want to do meth so bad, let them. It'll just mean more job opportunities for the rest of us, as these losers wash out of society.
As Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum reported, her crime--if you want to call it that--was "buying a box of Zyrtec-D allergy medicine for her husband, then buying a box of Mucinex-D decongestant for her daughter at another pharmacy less than a week later. That second transaction put Harpold six-tenths of a gram over Indiana's three-gram-per-week limit" for pseudoephedrine.
Unbelievable.
mpetrie98 at October 9, 2011 5:30 PM
I don't think anyone here is advocating legalization of meth. But prohibition of the precursors is not working. Just as prohibition of alcohol failed, and caused the creation of intrusive governmental organizations, you now have state, and federal, organizations that's sole job is to harass a grandmother for buying more sudafed in a week than she can possibly use.
Jim P. at October 9, 2011 7:03 PM
JimP, that was me, not Patrick. You don't have enough evidence for this. If encouraging an activity or rewarding a behavior leads to more of it, then making the raw materials for meth labs more available makes it easier to make it.
Feel free to rebut this. In the process, be sure to recognize the costs. mpetrie disregards the welfare of the victims, and we pay for alcohol to the tune of thousands of real, direct deaths per year. This is apparently OK.
Radwaste at October 9, 2011 7:47 PM
My apologies to Patrick.
I'm not saying there is no cost. But there is a cost to living in a free society. That is the lack of total security against bad things.
As it currently stands, maybe 2% (and probably .5% in reality) of the population makes meth. So I am now penalized, recorded, and otherwise blamed for that 2% of the populations' actions.
This is the same as the TSA. .0001 percent of the flying public are terrorists. I'm now subject to being groped, x-rayed, and otherwise having my Fourth and Fifth Amendment rights violated just to travel.
You are advocating for being sheeple. If that is your view, fine. But don't expect me to stand up next to you when they want to put an alcohol interlock on your vehicles, just because you own a vehicle.
Jim P. at October 9, 2011 8:36 PM
Oregon has required a prescription for sudafed for a couple of years now. The cops/DAs brag about how it has reduced local meth labs. They won't change the law any time soon. My guess would be that many don't bother going to the doc to get a scrip for it anymore. I sure as hell won't as the co pay makes it rather expensive.
Sio at October 9, 2011 9:43 PM
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