Washington wants tougher meth laws
The Sunday Oregonian (Portland, Oregon)
January 22, 2006 Sunday
Sunrise Edition
The Northwest | Olympia
KAYLA WEBLEY
The Oregonian
Washington state lawmakers want to put more time, money and cops on the case of methamphetamine cooks and abusers, but they aren’t ready yet to follow Oregon’s lead in requiring prescriptions for cold and allergy medicines that contain a key ingredient used to make the drug.
As the legislative session opened two weeks ago in Olympia, party leaders put fighting methamphetamine near the top of their agenda and rolled out a series of bills that would increase sentences, provide more effective treatment for users while in prison and help local law officers target distribution.
“We want to see fewer addicts getting out and going right back to their old behaviors,” Attorney General Rob McKenna said. “This would keep some of the worst offenders in prison . . . and make them think twice before risking the stronger penalties.”
Washington has recorded a drop in clandestine meth labs for the third year in a row: 806 reported in 2005, down 30 percent from 2004, according to the Washington State Patrol. The state patrol also recorded a 20 percent increase last year in the number of people seeking publicly funded help for their addiction.
But none of the Washington bills puts further restrictions on medicines containing pseudoephedrine, found in common decongestants such as Sudafed. Last year, Washington legislators passed a law requiring stores to put such cold medicines behind a counter and keep a log of customers who buy them.
Retailers started the counter system in October, and the logs began this month. Buyers must be 18 and older and present valid photo ID, and store employees must write down their name, address and date of birth and get their signature.
Legislators say they first want to see what effect the new law has before going further, such as making the medicines available only at pharmacy counters or requiring a prescription as Oregon will starting in summer under the country’s most restrictive law on pseudoephedrine.
“There is still a large market of people who use over-the-counter pseudoephedrines and cold pills who aren’t at all interested in making meth,” said Sen. Mark Doumit, D-Cathlamet, co-sponsor of the omnibus meth bill in the current session. “It’s a balance between an honest practice and trying to regulate people who are breaking the law by distorting the use of a drug.”
Now, legislators in Oregon worry that meth cooks will head to Washington to get pseudoephedrine and bring it back.
Oklahoma’s approach
“I’m not even asking (Washington) to go to prescription, just go to the Oklahoma law and put them behind the pharmacy counter,” said Rob Bovett, legal adviser for the Oregon Narcotics Enforcement Association and an assistant county counsel for Lincoln County. “We know it works; the data is in. I don’t understand why Washington is still not willing to adopt the full rule.”
Oklahoma was first in the nation to limit the sale of pseudoephedrine, putting the drugs behind the pharmacy counters. Since the law passed, 39 other states have adopted similar standards, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Some stores and lawmakers resist limiting the cold medicines to pharmacy counters because many groceries and convenience stores don’t have pharmacies.
But Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, said anything short of a prescription for pseudoephedrine isn’t enough. Before passing the prescription law in Oregon, she and fellow lawmakers took a shopping trip to see how much pseudoephedrine they could buy even though it was behind a counter.
Shopping results
In one hour, the group bought enough to make 200 hits of meth, which is enough to keep an addict going for close to six months, Burdick said.
“Some people in the Legislature argued it was too inconvenient for people to have to get prescriptions . . . when you weigh that impact with the horrible scourge on our communities, a little inconvenience might not be a big thing,” Burdick said. “We wanted to go the extra step in Oregon because we’ve got communities that are just being destroyed.”
Oregon’s pharmacy board is drafting rules for the change that are scheduled to go into effect July 1.
In the end, lawmakers from both Oregon and Washington said states can do only so much. The federal government needs to step up, they said.
Burdick said federal legislation restricting access to pseudoephedrine, along with establishing international controls cutting off illegal pseudoephedrine trade and superlab production of meth, would be “justified, given the impact of this drug on our nation.” But she doesn’t see the legislation passing because of strong lobbying against the bill by pharmaceutical companies.
Market forces
More likely than federal restrictions, she said, is the possibility of pseudoephedrine being phased out of the market entirely. Some pharmaceutical companies, anticipating the regulation of pseudoephedrine, have reformulated their drugs to use phenylephrine, a decongestant that cannot be used to manufacture meth.
“If we get enough states doing what Oregon did, you will see pseudoephedrine being phased out,” Burdick said. “We can cut off the supply and have a direct impact on the use of meth . . . but people won’t have to be suffering an untreated cold.”
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