Summary
Lawmakers across the country are proposing that products containing pseudoephedrine such as cold remedies be kept behind pharmacy counters. The measure makes it more difficult to manufacture methamphetamine, a deadly and destructive stimulant. Pseudoephedrine is difficult to obtain and is a key ingredient of meth.
Original source:
http://www.wavy.com/Global/story.asp?S=2870493
Details
With meth, drug users in middle America no longer have to rely on shady transactions with dangerous dealers.
They merely have to go to the local drugstore and pick up a pack of cold medicine, and some other household items.
But a bi-partisan group of U.S. Senators is trying to change that.
The Methamphetamine problem in the U.S. is growing in mathematical proportions...in part because many over-the-counter cold medicines contain pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in home cooked meth.
The drug hit the streets over a decade ago, made in super-labs in California.
Since then it has spread aggressively into the heartland, filling every dark corner.
Authorities have found meth labs in homes, hotels, barns, cars, a judge's chambers and even inside a church.
Toxic by-product of meth production is just one of many problems created by the drug.
The bill proposes putting common cold remedies containing pseudoephedrine behind the pharmacist's counter.
Similar legislation passed in Oklahoma last year has reduced the number of lab seizures by 80 percent.
The Federal measure would also provide more training and money to law enforcement.
Officers are not the only public servants being stretched thin.
Social service workers are dealing with a number of so-called "meth orphans" - children who are getting caught up in the drug epidemic.
About half the kids taken out of home with meth labs are testing positive for meth themselves.
Limiting the sale of over-the-counter cold remedies in the U.S. would be a big step, but supplies smuggled in from Canada and Mexico will likely make
meth a permanent battlefield in the war on drugs.
About the author: Mike Adams is an award-winning journalist and holistic nutritionist with a strong interest in personal health, the environment and the power of nature to help us all heal He is a prolific writer and has published thousands of articles, interviews, reports and consumer guides, and he has created several downloadable courses on survival and preparedness, including his widely-downloaded course on personal safety and self-defense. Adams is an independent journalist with strong ethics who does not get paid to write articles about any product or company. In mid 2010, Adams produced TV.NaturalNews.com, a natural health video sharing website offering user-generated videos on nutrition, green living, fitness and more. He also founded an environmentally-friendly online retailer called BetterLifeGoods.com that uses retail profits to help support consumer advocacy programs. He's also the founder of a well known HTML email software company whose 'Email Marketing Director' software currently runs the NaturalNews subscription database. Adams volunteers his time to serve as the executive director of the Consumer Wellness Center, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, and enjoys outdoor activities, nature photography, Pilates and martial arts training. He's also author of numerous health books published by Truth Publishing and is the creator of several consumer-oriented grassroots campaigns, including the Spam. Don't Buy It! campaign, and the free downloadable Honest Food Guide. He also created the free reference sites HerbReference.com and HealingFoodReference.com. Adams believes in free speech, free access to nutritional supplements and the ending of corporate control over medicines, genes and seeds. Known on the 'net as 'the Health Ranger,' Adams shares his ethics, mission statements and personal health statistics at www.HealthRanger.org
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Thursday, February 03, 2005
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