Oklahoma seems to be the first state to come up with something like this. It seems like a good compromise to me. You'd still be able to get your cold meds in gelcaps or liquid form as normal, but if you wanted tablets, you'd have to ask for them at the pharmacy and produce an ID.
What do you guys think?
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
I think anything would help with the current Meth situation in the midwest. It is a huge problem for farmers (who have anhydrous stolen) and for retailers (who are supposed to report to the police anyone who purchases like, more than two, boxes of cold medicine).
Glad to see this named in the bill in honor of the officers. Nik Green was killed just this past December. It is Oklahoma's most recent law enforcement death, I believe.
Farmgirl
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I find it pretty annoying, myself. This means 24-hour tablets would fall under the restriction.
Dagonee
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
It's also a pipe dream. The people who are making it are going after the cheapest and easiest source, true, but this won't stop people from making it. The only thing this can hope to do is jack up the street price.
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
Well, you'd still be able to get them. Just not in large quantity, and they'd be able to track if you bought a significant amount in a given time. If you're not doing something wrong, I could understand how you could feel rather indignant about being inconvenienced.
HOWEVER, Oklahoma currently ranks, what? second? in meth lab busts in the nation. But without pseudoephedrine, in SOLID form, you simply can't manufacture the stuff.
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
Bob, "jack up the street price."
95% of meth labs are NOT used to produce meth for sale. The people cooking it use it to support thier own habits. A very small amount of meth is actually sold "on the street" as it were...
Posted by Bob the Lawyer (Member # 3278) on :
at myself.
The next time someone sees me in chat at 1:30 on a work night, send me to bed.
For some reason my mind was going, "ok, they're talking about crystal meth, do do do..."
On the bright side, work ends in 10 minutes...
Edit: Wait wait wait... are crystal meth and methamphetamine the same thing? Because crystal meth is, in fact, quite dangerous to make and I'd be pretty surprised if there were a state full of people making it without a large portion of them blowing themselves up and poisoning each other.
[ March 31, 2004, 04:23 PM: Message edited by: Bob the Lawyer ]
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
Methamphetamine is still far too easy to synthesize. This might make the prices go up temporarily, but they will not stay there. The home users will fly under the radar and the big producers will find ways to work around this. There are probably also a few ways to easily extract pseudoephedrine (or ephedrine) from preparations where it is not the only form of the drug. If they got pseudoephedrine in there they can get it out. Hopefully the cooks will be intelligent enough to filter out any impurities rather than leave them in. Probably not.
Glad I am not a tweaker in Oklahoma. Probably good for the Asian drug economy as well; more demand for their product here.
Posted by MoonRabbit (Member # 3652) on :
I've always thought that if the government was really serious about stopping illegal drugs (especially coke and meth), they'd interecpt them, poison them (using strychnine, colchicine, or some other white powdery poison), and then give them back to the dealers.
When a few hundred people start dropping dead, I have a feeling the demand would start to decrease.
Being something of a Libertarian, I think drug prohibition is stupid. Not to mention a scam. But, if they were really serious about it...
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
BtL -- Meth is extremely dangerous to make -- and people DO get injured all the time making it.
As an EMT (on a volunteer ambulance service) was have had to go through lots of training about how to handle coming across a Meth lab scene. Treat it the same as HazMat.
Boon has me curious now -- I'm trying to find a site that list the state rankings of meth traffic/production. I know that Oklahoma and Kansas rank very high because of availability of ingredients, and a wide area for police to cover.
Farmgirl
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
Looking...will edit when I find it.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Arrggg!!
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation says we rank fifth -- but I can't find where they are getting those state rankings from!
Farmgirl
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
Farmgirl, I found a map of the United States that shows total meth lab busts for 2003 by state. It's friom the DEA website. meth lab busts by state for 2003 Posted by Dan_raven (Member # 3383) on :
I'm from Missour. I heard we was ranked number 1. Yee Ha.
My favorite story, the police chased a burning truck down the highway. He was a portable meth lab that was about to explode.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Thanks Derrell!! you're good!
Does show that Oklahoma outranks us (Kansas) but maybe it is just that their officers can FIND and bust more of them.
But as you can see, it is certainly a huge problem in the midwest
Farmgirl
Posted by Derrell (Member # 6062) on :
Farmgirl, I figured the best place to look would be the home of the "War on Drugs". The site also has a fact sheet for each state listing the prevalence of various drugs.
Posted by sarcasticmuppet (Member # 5035) on :
I see Arkansas's pretty high on the list as well. *sigh*. I had a friend in High School whose parents got busted for having a meth lab in their home. Talk about a perfect way to ruin your child's life, this happened right around Christmas, and there was noone to take care of her (she was still a minor) until about a month before the end of the school year when she got shipped off to Germany to live with her grandpa.
[ March 31, 2004, 05:50 PM: Message edited by: sarcasticmuppet ]
Posted by Zamphyr (Member # 6213) on :
FWIW, I would be against this if it was brought up in my state. I like my tablets, liquid medicines just aren't that portable. I tend to agree with MoonRabbit, that the War on Drugs has been less than successful. As OK is not my home, I leave it to them to decide how best to clean up their mess. As long as this was truely a local idea and not a strong suggestion from the Feds, so be it.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
::shudder::
When I was a hospital chaplain we had people come in with severe burns all the way down their throat because they were trying to siphon anhydrous ammonia from farm tanks and didn't stop soon enough.
Plus injuries from explosions.
The production of this crap seems to be as dangerous as using it, but that certainly isn't stopping many people from doing it.
Posted by Boon (Member # 4646) on :
Zam, portability shouldn't be an issue, since Gelcaps are not included in the legislation.
dkw, you're right, production is *at least* as dangerous as use. Not to mention the danger to emergency personnel who come into contact with labs, etc.
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
The production is more dangerous than the drug itself, short term. Long term it probably depends on how intrinsically safe the production is versus how much one uses meth. People who get pure methampetamine for weight loss or narcolepsy generally do not suffer health problems, but people living in a trailer park insufflating it constantly certainly will. It likely makes ones teeth fall out when used for extended periods of time, as well as burning away dopamine receptors. (Imagine never feeling happy again ever.) Certainly something to clear of.
Posted by dkw (Member # 3264) on :
And the danger to the people who live next door to the idiot who's making it in his/her garage.
[ March 31, 2004, 06:11 PM: Message edited by: dkw ]
Posted by plaid (Member # 2393) on :
I'm in the Missouri Ozarks. The local county weekly has a story about meth lab busts just about every week. (It's pretty much a regular feature, the other regulars being a car crash and a wife beating...)
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Plaid, the same thing is happening in the Blue Ridge mountains of NC as well. Each week when I read the hometown papers, it seems there's at least one story about crystal meth labs.
What gives with this? Why is it so common? Why are so many folks willing to risk so much to make it?
Posted by BookWyrm (Member # 2192) on :
I'm in NW Arkansas. They are trying to close a loophole in a recent law to cover large purchases of Blister Pacs now. There's already a law where they take your name and track you down if you buy large quantites of cold meds containing psuedoephedrine. They didn't think people would go to the trouble of dealing with blister packs and have since found out they were wrong. Personally I think they should lower the amount from 9 grams (366 pills) to anything over 100 pills. That *might* curb some of the production since people would have to go to so many stores to fly under the radar. Not the BEST solution but would tighten controls a bit more.
Posted by Danzig (Member # 4704) on :
Most of the people making it are addicted themselves, and even if they do plan to sell it they put lots of it into themselves. The more you use methamphetamine, the more you need it to be happy. Speaking from experience, the comedowns of even regular amphetamine are not fun, and I only stayed up one night, one time. Some of these people stay up for weeks on end, try to quit, have comedowns, and go on another binge. Tweakers will do anything for meth.
Posted by Farmgirl (Member # 5567) on :
Boon -- I just had to bump this thread after a news story up here last night:
I can't find the original story (it mentions it in the above link) but basically since Oklahoma passed it's new law, now the OK meth producers are driving up here to Kansas to try to purchase their supplies <grin>.
quote:Police say they found the men with more than 900 tablets of Sudafed, which contains pseudoephedrine
quote: Walgreen's only allows four boxes per customer and has anti-theft devices on each box. Target allows three boxes per customer; however, one option contains 96 tablets, while most have 24 to 45.
So I guess you're new law is working for Oklahoma -- to a point.....
[ April 16, 2004, 10:06 AM: Message edited by: Farmgirl ]
Posted by BannaOj (Member # 3206) on :
Well my parents neighborhood in CA is adding one to the statistics this year.
On Tuesday my Mom heard a gunshot, the neighbors heard two. The live in a fairly respectable area of the town kind of in-between the rich and poor areas. They looked outside to see two people fighting in a yard and called 911.
In investigating the gunshots and fight the police found a giant meth lab and lots of other drug paraphenalia in the garage. Then it became an even bigger investigation. The people running the drug ring were renting from people who had been friends with our family when they lived in the neighborhood. I know the property owners are going to be horrified.
And the day before, the house two down the opposite direction from my parents sold for over a 1/2 million dollars. Property prices are insane in CA!
![[Laugh]](graemlins/laugh.gif)
"jack up the street price."![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
at myself.![[Frown]](frown.gif)