Cold-medicine rules pioneered by Oregon curb meth labs
80% of the meth product found in this country is imported from SOUTH OF THE BOARDER… While the two states have dramatically reduced the number of meth lab busts… there is no mention of the fact of the status of Meth being readily available one the city streets of those two states. Maybe that is because … it has stayed the same or increased.
Oregon’s era of the meth lab is essentially over. The state’s seen a 97 percent decrease in meth lab incidents since the methamphetamine precursor ingredient pseudoephedrine, a nasal decongestant popularly sold as Sudafed, became available only by prescription in 2006. The state experienced 473 meth lab incidents in 2003 and only nine in 2013.
Oregon and Mississippi are the only states requiring a prescription to obtain pseudoephedrine. As of 2013, 63 Missouri cities or counties also have their own prescription-only regulations on pseudoephedrine products. These regulations, the strictest in the nation, have reduced the number of drug labs, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office measuring the impact of state-by-state approaches to curtailing methamphetamine production. The report also notes that although lab seizures are down, Oregon is still a high-trafficking area.
Other states take part in electronic tracking systems like the National Precursor Log Exchange, or NPLEx, which is paid for by pharmaceutical companies manufacturing pseudoephedrine products. Twenty-seven states use NPLEx to monitor how pseudoephedrine passes through their drug stores.
The Drug Enforcement Agency’s El Paso Intelligence Center also maintains the National Clandestine Laboratory Register, where law enforcement agencies report drug lab seizures for a national list. The problem is the register’s entries aren’t necessarily correct or complete. The DEA doesn’t verify the list for accuracy, and law enforcement agencies voluntarily report lab seizures to the DEA.
“Some states tend to be very good at putting information on. Other states, maybe not quite as good,” said Special Agent Joseph Moses, a DEA spokesman in Washington, D.C.
“There could be many more out there that don’t get reported,” said Special Agent Eric Neubauer, a DEA spokesman in El Paso.
gfriedman2@statesmanjournal.com, (503) 399-6653 or on Twitter @gordonrfriedman
Filed under: General Problems
Why is the DEA 17 billion dollar budget, our 700 mile-long iron curtain, Border Patrol, US Customs, and untold legions of state and federal agency desert cops an insufficient force to stop the influx of deadly street drugs into the Southwest?
It makes no sense at all that Americans do not hold their government accountable for the complete failure known as The War on Drugs.
Part of the old, “Pay no attention to the man behind the mirror” routine. The increasingly restricted sales of pseudoephedrine-containing products in this country are really just another facet if the foreign drug lord price support program commonly known here as the CSA of 1970. So long as people are lining up to buy it, there will be manufacture somewhere and sales here in any number of run down neighborhoods. Portugal is a good example of a harm reduction model that this country needs to look at.