I am having a hard time reconciling this with the Patriot Act as it would seem it would come under drug laws somewhere where it might be expected if researching? Meth and the labs and the addictions are a huge problem in my area and a devastating gorilla to those addicted. However, it seems that someone always comes up with another scheme when one is removed from availability. Locally, we have certain items under wraps in stores but it sends them further away to obtain it.

I would expect the Patriot Act to contain only issues relevant to enforcement of so-called terrorism measures and acts that would imperil the security of the citizens rather than illegal drugs. Our government has been highly unsuccessful thus far in winning any kind of war on imported drugs and seizures haven't seemed to make an impact. Look at Afghanistan where the production of heroin has reached pre-meddling proportions.

It must be dealt with but burying it in this "Act" doesn't seem the proper place.

This really is a non-issue. I no longer have allergies, or none that incapacitate me, but I did and couldn't have functioned without pseudoephedrine.

If it's possible to buy 300 pills a month, that's more per day than I ever needed. There's also the 120 per day limit. So a couple pharmacies on a couple days gets you 240 pills. Not a problem.

In Texas, they've been doing this since August 2005. I went and got a prescription at the doctor, so I don't get decongestants any more over the counter. I won't play their games. This isn't about meth. It's just another excuse for the government to snoop in people's business. It's NONE of their business how many decongestants anybody takes and there are too many ways around this ridiculous "law". For a government that claims to support less government interference, they're snooping into our business more than anyone ever has. They’re way beyond paranoid. No, but it’s the rest of us who are conspiracy theorists. Geez, Louise. They’ve given the term “conspiracy theorist” a new meaning.

What a crock. Everybody has forgotten the past history of meth. It has been a street drug since the days of Jack Keroack and the Beats. It is a simple chemical, and has been made in ton lots for years, and sold in every truck stop in America or decades.

The hippies had a compaign against meth in the Haight St. days, "Speed kills" and damn little of that meth was made from cold tablets. This is just another Drug War bandaid on a real problem, but nobody is going after the big wholesalers; the reason is that they have lots of guns and stay awake 24/7 and are very aggessive and crazy. Just like Tim McVie.

"Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism", known colloquially as the "USA Patriot Act" (from the first letter in each word of the title) was intended to be about TERRORISM. It is being extended to cover every kind of control that our current version of "get the government off our backs" wants to include. I suggest they start looking at the "V in T" ordinances, and maybe the TV program rating system next. There should be nothing left out until the totalitarian dictatorship is complete. And let's not forget the part about having children report their parents' misdeeds to the Bushovite police.

The arguments the politicians and the cops are floating about how cold medicines are used to produce meth are pure horsepuckey! Phoenix, AZ has an ordinance similar to what the Feds want to do and, prior to passing it, the Phoenix New Times ran a story pointing out that to make meth from cold medicines, one would need at least 16,560 caplets of Tylenol and 3 different chemicals to produce one ounce of meth. The article can be read here: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/Issues/2005-12-08/news/feature.html . Rather than abolish our stupid drug laws, the politicians use terrorism and methamphetamine as an excuse to pass one more regulation to control the populace. However, I hardly think they will be able to adequately track much of the purchases as the feds are overstretched as it is.

I'm glad I live minutes from the great country of Canada. I already go over there to buy Allegra D which is sold over the counter. Looks like I will be going there for all my over the counter meds.

Cathy
From the once great State of Michigan

Was a pharmacy technician a while ago. we had to put medicines of the same category behind the counter . The reason, the local Russian Mafia was ripping off the medicines. The local police busted up a crystal meth gang, and lab locally all where the "poor" persecuted Russians. Presently if I may inform these same "russians" run a prescrition drug scam . Where they are on Ohio medicaid go to their Docs get a load of scripts get the filled for nothing send them to russia via the mafia and make buck. The state of Ohio is going broke on medicaid because of this....

I live in California and I was so ticked at Feinstein and Boxer voting for the Patriot Act--Boxer said, "I just wanted to support Dianne's anit-meth bill!"--I told them both they and all the other Democrats had lost my vote until they grow a spine.

Piggybacking the anti-meth bill on the Patriot Act was completely unnecessary.

I get my generic pseudoephedrine at Costco, which had already started stocking Sudafed behind the counter a while back. I fail to see how regulating this little red pill changes anything.

Still fuming...

First of all I would really like to say that I enjoy this website for the news and rants and usually make it one of my stops with my mourning coffee. I am an american living in Mexico, and a curious thing has happened recently, a product called Noctyl has been showing up on pharmacy shelves here in large numbers, Noctyl is the mexican name for Nyquil. For those of you who don't know Nyquil, imagine a shot of Jagermeister laced with flu powder. THis stuff is potent. The strange thing is this; why is it showing up here where many cheaper prescription medications (much more effective at combating the symptoms of a severe cold) are readily available to the masses? For example, we all know that american health care is driven by drug companies,(no conspiracy theory here, just get sick without health insurance and you won't be wondering why the pension you worked so hard for all your life isn't enough to get you out of skid row) my daughter had a severe swimmer's ear infection while we were on vacation in the U.S. we had to go to the doctor, get a prescription, get the prescription filled with expensive medications and when all was said and done, we spent around $450, the same simple ear infection here would have set the family back only about $20. What does an ear infection have to do with the article above? well after reading it I realized that perhaps the methaphetamine probablem is far,far worse than any of us can even fathom. The law enforcement officials in the article mentioned that, though the laws were highly effective in combating domestic production, it does little with consumption since the mexican cartels have stepped up to bat to supply the much needed fix to all those enthusiasts of single-colored, 5000 piece, jigsaw puzzles. (just great, the cartels have one more substance to make money off of while destroying innocent lives on both sides of the border) THis makes me wonder then, if, coughsyrups containing psuedoephedrine are put behind the counter in the US, is it possible that those companies which produce such medicines have come to the realization that this would seriously dent the profits from the sales of their product? And have acted accordingly by shifting markets south of the border along with the shift of production labs? It stands to reason that perhaps the war on drugs really isn't designed to stop a damn thing, but rather, is an attempt at regulating an industry which is, in many areas of the world, a major, major source of money for local economies (as well as black opps, bribes, political control, etc, etc). If drug production, smuggling, and sales were stopped tomorrow, entire continents would become politically and economically unstable. So maybe, just mayber, there are those who view the war on drugs as a formula to control, when and where, drugs are produced, smuggled and sold. Is it possible that those companies which produce cough syrup are no different than the coca growers of south america? Though they do nothing illegal, are they fully aware that what drives a large part of their sales is the production of illegal drugs? One has to wonder. perhaps the answer to these questions can be answered by the lawofficers fighting on the frontline of this plague, someone should ask them if you were to put several coughsyrups side by side in front of someone who runs a lab, which product would they prefer, the medicine with psuedoephedrine, or the medicine with psuedoephedrine and the alcohol content of booze?

I laugh at the people who buy into anything the current administraion claims, with regard to what's good or bad for us. I knew a person in Montana who used and sold crystal meth. He didn't mess around with the product of "poor quality" that was available from local manufacturers and made with sudafed, iodine and red phospherous. Instead he'd occasionally go out of town for the weekend. He told me he would spend the time driving south, bought the "good stuff" from the "Mexican Mafia" for $600 per ounce and resell it in Montana for around $3,500.

His claim was that he not only supported his habit, but turned a pretty fair profit as well. He also said he usually would sell an ounce a day in 8th ounce quantities and only had to deal with one or two people. Did that every couple weeks and never had to find prescription cold medicine....

Once again Congress shows its contempt for the average American . Those of us in the southwest know exactly where most of the meth is coming from : Mexico . Same with most other illegal drugs . So long as there is a market for illegal drugs (and this will be always) there will be an organized crime association ready to mass produce and market said drugs . I would have thought the pro-business republicans learned this in Economics 101 . Treatment of drug dependancy is widely known to be the most effective course in any attempt to reduce drug usage in the populace but the abstinance minded Puritans are pulling the strings at Republican HQ . These folks need to get off their supposedly moral high ground and get a more realistic view of the situation .

You can put a band aid on a severed limb but the patient will probably die .

Again we miss the whole picture. When you begin to try to regulate the will of the people, you're preparing to fight a long war. Since mankind became civilized, that is, since we began to live in cities, there has been a consistent portion of the population that insists on getting messed up on whatever's available. That proportion of the population has remained relatively consistent throughout our history, always present, always stoned on something. What makes us think we can legislate a stop to it now? It's our nature to do this, and no matter what steps are taken to prevent it, there will always be that percentage of us who will stop at nothing to get high. I say let 'em. If they commit actual crimes in the process, with victims other than themselves, then by all means, prosecute them, but stop punishing humans for indulging in human nature!

the feds and the police in general don't want to win the war on drugs, for the same reason that doctors don't want to cure cancer and the same reason that 15 million americans are carrying borrelia spirochetes in their brains {the real reason for the anthrax attacks FYI}.

what democracy? what does the patriot act have to do with medicines? these bastards in our government have all turned their backs on the poeple.

we have no representative government and as we head towards a police state where the government ignors the rest of us.....time for a revolution.

this is our country. end of story.

Well, I'm sure glad I can buy all the model airplane glue I want!

Yes, most of the meth actually comes from what the government calls "superlabs" that can make a lot of product using smuggled or diverted precursors. Or such labs in Mexico.

But many many "kitchen sink" labs are springing up all the time. They do use the pseudoephedrine, phosporous, & iodine recipe, and they are notorious for blowing up, dumping toxic waste, and endangering the lives of children living in the same house. They are not difficult to find, because the cookers are meth burn-outs who smell like chemicals, look like they are dying, and get so sloppy that their neighbors turn them in. Then the responders risk their lives to clean up the mess.

I have read some of the police education documents, and the government acknowledges that the professional superlabs cause a lot fewer social problems. That's why they are trying to decrease the number of "kitchen sink" labs. They know it won't really cut the availability of meth. But it could save some lives, and improve the life of a lot of kids. I think they are right, even if it doesn't belong in an anti-terrorism bill.

The war on drugs has failed, and is losing steam; why else would they place such a rider in an unrelated bill that was certain to pass, such as the USA PA.

And in an honest world, BOTH bills would be thrown out based upon their being abominations to the intent of the Founders in general.

Was anyone here born with a tatto on their butt, reading, "Property of XXXXX" No, not that I've seen.

Can a government, ANY government, successfully regulate a person's relationship with themselves, either morally, philosophically, or legally? Not that we've ever seen throughout history, though many have become increasingly totalitarian in their failed attempts to do so.... just like 'we' have, here in Amerikkka.

The concept of Freedom includes one's right to be foolish, live with risk, do things that another wouldn't do, experience the fullness of life (and death), etc. Are there costs to this kind of freedom? Yep. Are there even greater costs to its alternative.... The 58 Billion dollars a year that we pump into War On (Some) Drugs (responsible for the majority of court precedents tearing down our constitution(s)), screams "HELL yes!!"

Most of us survived the escapades of the drugs available in the 60s and 70s, and many of them were at least as questionable as anything available today. And despite the boomerang effect caused by Officer Friendly's in-class propaganda and DARE's outrageous misrepresentations that inadvertently led to GREATER (not lesser) use, (or no effect upon rates of use at all) for the youth they lied to, we mostly survived.

Those who didn't can be chalked up to Darwinism; yes, Virginia, life AND freedom have risks.

Were some of those losses sad? Yep. Did some of them seem tragic? Yep. And should we now deprive persons of self-determination and destroy the underlying concepts of freedom in order to guard ourselves from any sorrowful or negative experiences in life?.... I and many others say, ney, SCREAM, "no!"

But the Shrubmeister, Indiana's Rep. Souder, and too many other modern-day fascists say it's all o.k.

So, how much police state do YOU want in foolishly attempting to guarantee an unachievable Nirvana? A state of cleanliness that frankly cannot exist, even WITH the creation of gulags from sea to shining sea.

Polly-Anna totalitarians on the Left, and Neo-Con Fascists on the Right. God help those of us in the middle that still believe in freedom and personal responsibility!!

Some 80% of America's methamphetamine is made in foreign countries (mainly Mexico). Such restrictions as this will do virtually NOTHING to curb the supply of meth. The Mexican nationals just pick up the slack until the US based cooks can readjust. It may cut small scale home-lab production, but it will eventually boost large scale home-lab production (the "cooks" will be forced to become more sophisticated and begin making their own precursors - which is relatively easy, and is, in fact, not very suitable for just small scale production).

If we look at history and the facts, we can see that this is just a bad law anyway. In the 1970's and 1980's, >80% of meth was made via phenyl-2-propanone [not (pseudo)ephedrine]. In the 80's, when strong regulations of p-2-p and its precursors were passed, the shift was to the widely available ephedrine, which would be bought as bulk powder without suspicion. It took around 10 years for the DEA/DOJ to catch up with stronger regulations, at which time production switched to pseudoephedrine. It's now about 10 years after that, and they are finally closing the regulation gaps on pseudo (well at least partially, but that's another few paragraphs). But it's already too late. With the explosion of information sharing on the Internet, there are ever expanding amounts of new synthetic & simi-synthetic routes and improved old routes to meth just waiting to be popularized.

For some reason the lawmakers act as if this legislation will do ANYTHING to the amount of drugs in the country... they're obviously ignorant or just love seeing people go to jail or both. In reality, this just screws the common citizen over, and it does nothing of significance to drug producers, users or sellers besides helping cartel profits and forcing more drug-law-caused problems on to society.

An additional irony here is that the military has used amphetamines for decades as a method of fighting troop fatigue.

The Air Guard pilots who improperly strafed and bombed the Canadians in Afghanistan when the first pilot disobeyed orders and rolled in after first being told to hold for confirmation, were reportedly taking what the military commonly calls 'go pills.' HEAVEN FORBID that they'd call them S-P-E-E-D -or- U-P-P-E-R-S!!!!

In fact, they were most likely either dexedrine or provigil.

And to add some further irony, it was the U.S. government Judge Advocate who entered a statement into evidence that these 'go pills' didn't effect coordination... But anyone who drove cross-country trucks in days of old knows that to run the body non-stop without sleep indeed has the capacity to distort space, time, depth perception, and other aspects of functioning that might be necessary at about.... MACH II!!

Methamphetamine hydro-chloride (crank or meth in its most pure pharmaceutical state) achieves much the same thig as the others, and often enters from Mexico -OR- S.E. Asia via Hawaii.

So, the bottom line is this; If you're a pilot with side-winders and cluster bombs, doing Mach II, being wired ain't a big deal. But if you're a tweaked biker with a switch-blade doing 65mph, you're a hazzard to society!!

Yeah.. I think that I've got this figured out now.... One has permission for the nanny state, and one doesn't.. ;^>)

Can you actually believe people voted these mental midgets, into office? What does meth drug abuse have to do with Strong arm terrorism? OH! I see. Now the Government is in on it. Special!

How much more abuse of power must we take? Can you say Police State, ......... America?

Here is the patriot act stopping the evil scourge of.........TERRORISM!!!!!! Huh? I guess addicts are terrorists now. You're next.

the Patriot Act has already been used to prosecute animal rights activists after they vadalized labs and loosed animals at a research facility in N.J.
Is this type of thing what that set of laws is for??
Maybe we here are guity of "extremism" (or thought-crime)and are living on borrowed time.Halliburton Summer Camp here we come.

Buy cold meds, get a knock on the door for a birdbrained flu vaccine shot. Think this is kooky? You'd be right but it's exactly the NAZI mentality of deranged Bushites spreading their FASCISM across this nation and the world. NOTHING they have done supposedly for our 'good' has been! The purpose of FEMA was to gradually introduce a DICTATORSHIP that Bush Jr. has openly sought BEFORE being elected. We're about to get it with the Homeland GESTAPO at the helm.

Strong words? PROVE ME WRONG! Sadly history is repeating itself yet again.

IF WE ALLOW IT!

300 pills a month might seem like a lot for one person, but when you have a large family and everyone is suffering from a bad cold, you can go through boxes pretty quickly. You figure on 8 pills per day per person, with six people that's only about a six-day supply. This is neither pertinent to the aim of the PATRIOT act or sensible legislation.