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.