In West Virginia news:
On a 16-16 tie vote, the state Senate rejected a bill Thursday that would require a doctor’s prescription to purchase cold medicine containing the ingredient pseudoephedrine.
The close vote came as 50 uniformed police officers in favor of the bill watched from the galleries above the Senate floor.
Supporters say making pseudoephedrine more difficult to acquire will reduce the number of meth labs in West Virginia. Police have called the practice of making meth a “scourge” on the state.
But senators who opposed the bill say they’ve heard from hundreds of constituents who are concerned about having to see a doctor to get cold medicine, which is now available over the counter.
Sen. David Nohe, R-Wood, himself a former police officer, argued passionately against the bill, saying U.S. veterans fought for such freedoms.
“‘You gave four years of your life and what do you think of this bill?’ Because of these hoodlums, they’re hoodlums; we want to give up our rights for them. We think we’re doing right,” Nohe said.
Nohe added residents in his area have let him know without a doubt they don’t favor the plan. “If they’re not smart enough to make that decision then how are we smart enough to make it for them,” he said.
I think it is ridiculous to require a prescription for these meds, and the existing law requiring you to show id seems to me to have proven to be enough of an inconvenience without doing anything to stop meth production. Having said that, is there a worse argument out there for opposing this law than “THINK OF THE TROOPS?” We send people to war for a lot of reasons, and I am sure you can think of quite a few of them. None of them, however, have been to secure your right to get sinus meds without a doctor’s prescription.
That’s just an embarrassingly stupid argument.
mr. whipple
The US Armed Forces: Keeping us safe from sinus blockage.
maye
In California they keep them behind the counter at the pharmacy and make you sign your name on some kind of roster. How that’s stopping meth use, I’m not quite sure.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
this is a pretext to sharia law!
Elvis Elvisberg
Makes more sense than anything else as far as what our occupation of Iraq is supposed to be getting us.
beltane
Why couldn’t they come up with a practical argument, say that requiring a prescription would effectively prohibit the uninsured from obtaining cold medicine?
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
what doesn’t kill us, can only stuff up our noses.
beltane
@Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder’s Dead): Yeah, the caliphate is so going to confiscate your cold meds. It will be the dhimmitude all over again.
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
this wouldn’t matter if we had single payer.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: Obamacare!
Mike Kay (Ding-Dong-Broder's Dead)
Speaking of Meth-heads:
Bradley Manning’s father gave an interview to the PBS Newshour today, saying he has visited his son 9 times in Quantico and that his son is being treated well.
Ooops. Looks like you know who forgot to coach him.
He also believes his son is innocent of the underlying charges.
kdaug
The “War On Drugs”(r) is the point of the spear of the theorcracy.
khead
Whew.
I was afraid I was going to have to find somewhere to get fake prescriptions as I drove from store to store.
That may have added a few extra minutes to the trip in southern WV.
Also, the meth mobile
parsimon
Surely we should outlaw apples because (did you know?) you can craft a smoking apparatus out of one. !!!
You have to wonder whether our legislators are incredibly bored, and spend time casting about for bills to propose.
Suffern ACE
@Elvis Elvisberg: Yeah. If they would have made it about pseudoeffederine instead of weapons of mass destruction it would still be a lie, but we could all breathe easier knowing that we could still get the real Nyquil.
Redshift
I find the whole “our troops who defend our freedoms” line to be extremely asinine. The military protects our lives and safety (when they’re not misused), primarily by its existence as a deterrent, and I have great respect for that.
But military conflicts haven’t been fought to “defend our freedoms” at least since WWII. The people who constantly promote this jingoistic line are clearly more interested in “military, rah, rah, DFH’s hate the troops if they don’t whatever mission the neocons send them on!”, and in the conservative definition of “freedom”: freedom to do the right things.
It’s now become so commonplace that it’s spread well beyond such people and seeped into way to many brains. Hearing otherwise well-intentioned people parrot it really bugs me.
cbear
I’m with Nohe on this one. Hey, those sheep aren’t going to medicate themselves and they’re so much more fun when they’re frisky.
Pontiac
There’s literally nothing these days that isn’t interpretable as drug paraphenalia.
soonergrunt
@mr. whipple:
That’s more noble than anything we did in Iraq.
Pontiac
There’s literally nothing these days that isn’t interpretable as drug paraphenalia. Heh, if you look at the meth mobile post they call out sudafed, a lithium battery, and a bunch of stuff that one might just happen to have in one’s car. *a* lithium battery.
It’s not like they were tooling around with a reeking cylinder of anhydrous ammonia.
soonergrunt
Here’s my thing–living in Oklahoma, we have a meth problem here. The state Bureau of Narcotics estimates that 70% of the drug sales in OK are meth.
The few meth-heads I’ve met (and I admit to having met only a few) are uniformly people who are doing nothing for the gene pool anyway. They won’t be missed.
Redshift
And the really sad thing is that other than the rote invocation of our sainted veterans, Sen. Nohe’s argument is pretty good. We’ve long needed pushback against the idea that crime, drugs, and security are paramount and we should give up rights and treat everyone like a suspect to deal with them. Cold medicine may seem like a silly place to draw the line, but we’ve gotta start somewhere.
mr. whipple
@soonergrunt:
It looks like a really, really nasty drug.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
@beltane: Not Troopy enough I reckon.
CALGON, TAKE ME AWAY:
Law enforcement agents and poison control centers say the bath salts, with their complex chemical names, are an emerging menace in several U.S. states where authorities talk of banning their sale. Some say their effects can be as powerful as those of methamphetamine.
[…]
Sold under such names as Ivory Wave, Bliss, White Lightning and Hurricane Charlie, the chemicals can cause hallucinations, paranoia, a rapid heart rate and suicidal thoughts, authorities say. In addition to bath salts, the chemicals can be found in plant foods that are sold legally at convenience stores and on the Internet. However, they aren’t necessarily being used for the purposes on the label.
Omnes Omnibus
@Pontiac: Hash for one. It is an actual drug.
joeyess
An embarrassing political argument coming from a Republican? Well hit me with a soggy pancake and call me an IHOP, I wouldn’t believe I would see such a thing in my lifetime.
Eric U.
is meth really that much of a societal problem? Mostly you hear about meth labs being shut down, not shootouts and murders.
I can’t imagine that my ability to buy sudafed is really encouraging this activity anyway. They are not getting the stuff through legal channels. They used to steal it, which is why it’s behind the counters.
burnspbesq
“50 uniformed police officers watched from the gallery.”
Am I the only one who finds that creepy and disturbing?
burnspbesq
@joeyess:
Wouldn’t you rather be a Denny’s than an IHOP?
Pontiac
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Just like fake pot is worse for you than real pot, so fake coke is worse for you than real coke.
Well, except for seeing as how restricting oneself to things that aren’t explicitly illegal (yet) one reduces one’s dealings with people doing illegal business and the cops that love them. That’s not good either.
Omnes Omnibus
@burnspbesq: IHOP is more cosmopolitan. It’s the name, you see.
malraux
@maye:
My understanding of these laws is that the goal isn’t to reduce the amount of meth being consumed, but to encourage/outsource the production elsewhere. Cleaning up meth labs is a semi-legitimate toxic nightmare. If the precursors are hard to get domestically, then we get to have mexico deal with cleanup. I’m not sure I buy the justification, but there is at least a rational basis for the rule.
J. Michael Neal
@Eric U.:
They also used to just buy it in large quantities. Honestly, if it had actually led to lower meth production, my chronic sinusitis and I would have been okay with putting it behind the counter. I just have a friend buy some whenever he goes to Target, doubling my monthly supply. Apparently, it has had little to no effect, though, so I’d rather just declare it a failure and let my buy my own drugs.
parsimon
@malraux: That’s helpful, malraux. Thanks.
Redshift
@Eric U.: Apparently, one of the consequences of the buying limits and having to show ID is that gangs are now recruiting large numbers of homeless and poor people who haven’t been involved in crime, to go into drug stores and buy their allotment of pseudoephedrine. (It’s also still being imported by Mexican gangs.)
Tonal Crow
It’s long past time to zero out the
War on DrugsWar on LibertyWar on the 4th AmendmentWar on the 5th AmendmentWar on black menWar on the truth.Legalize it all. Including meth.
We do not need a government to tell us what we may and may not take into our own bodies. End of story.
cathyx
My state has a law requiring a prescription to buy it. So my choices are pay high prices to get it through the doctor, use an alternative drug, (which aren’t as good), or drive up to Washington and buy a large quantity at Costco.
Has it curtailed the meth manufacturing? They say it has.
Punchy
But da Po’leece are unionized, so gives a fuck about them? Just more societal leeches sucking the Koch of taxpayer scratch…
General Stuck
Needing a prescription for sudafed is just asinine wingnuttery, shall I nanny statism. the way it’s done here is the slot on the over the counter rack with the other sinus meds, has a card you take instead for sudafed to hand to a pharmacy assistant and they give you one pack or two.
Tonal Crow
@cathyx:
…and then get stopped for a traffic violation and arrested on suspicion of manufacturing meth.
All praise the War on Drugs!
J. Michael Neal
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen: Sigh. It’d be nice if someone in authority would realize that banning pseudoephedrine pushes people to more dangerous stuff like bath salts. As someone else said in this thread, you probably would have much meth use if people could just obtain cocaine, which produces the same kind of high and is a lot safer.
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
Hold on. We need to consult Prof. Rock about this issue.
Links to a Chris Rock bit. Do I really need to mention it is NSFW?
Tonal Crow
What the GOP? Now WP is refusing to display posts. GYWP!
Tonal Crow
@cathyx:
And then get stopped for a traffic violation, have the dog alert, get searched, and get arrested on suspicion of manufacturing meth.
All hail the Most Glorious War on Drugs!
FlipYrWhig
This Nohe guy is taking WAY too literally that commercial where the white-helmeted soldiers cram the nasal spray into the suffering nose, Iwo Jima style.
soonergrunt
@mr. whipple: Oh, it does. No doubt about it. Maybe it’s because I haven’t met any meth-heads before they were meth-heads. I suppose I’d feel differently if somebody I knew were degrading like that in front of me.
soonergrunt
@Omnes Omnibus: I thought it was the strawberry and blueberry syrup at every table that made them better than Dennys.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
you know what banning pseudoephedrine will lead to, don’t you?
snot tourism, west virginians leaving the state to buy their nasal medication. west virginian boogers will be smeared across state lines.
Omnes Omnibus
@soonergrunt: That just shows how cosmopolitan IHOP is.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@parsimon:
Not only that but you can used sliced apple to ripen pot faster (the gas sliced apple gives off helps to ripen it faster).
Mmmmm, applebuds! Makes my lungs water.
joe from Lowell
Perhaps this:
While that’s a perfectly good argument against a completely different set of drug laws, it really has nothing to do with the pseudoephedrine restriction. Nobody is proposing to regulate Sudafed in the interest of people who might abuse it; nor is Nohe making an argument against the ban on crystal meth, which actually was created to restrict people from making a decision about using drugs.
This guy Nohe seems to be on the right side of this issue, but he’s just throwing stuff against the wall to see what sticks.
kdaug
@mr. whipple: Yurp. Recommend you don’t do it.
What the fuck does that have to do with Cole’s sinuses?
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
jenkem.
i think because of the reported threat of people inhaling the fumes of raw sewage, butthash as its called, we should only be able to shit, or flush a toilet, with a prescription.
i mean when are grave new threats promo’d heavily during local news sweeps periods ever over stated perhaps even to the point of being non-existent?
joe from Lowell
Also, guess who co-sponsored the federal law (!) that made stores put Sudafed behind the counter a few years ago?
Why, that would be the co-sponsor of the Combat Meth Act.
soonergrunt
Speaking as a (now retired) troop–if ya’ll want to suck drugs down until you die, go right ahead. I won’t stop you.
joe from Lowell
@mr. whipple: I knew a girl at school who did it a couple of times, and told me that, although she didn’t even like the drug, she probably wouldn’t be able to stop herself from doing some if it was there in front of her.
That sort of thing is just no good.
I can respect gluttony. I can respect people doing way to much of something because they really, really love it.
But this is a whole other thing.
mr. whipple
I hate WV boogers.
b-psycho
@burnspbesq: Nope. Intimidation was the first thing I thought when I read that part.
mr. whipple
@joe from Lowell:
It just looks incredibly horrible. I don’t know if making these remidies harder to get will help curb meth manufacture, but I think less meth would be a good thing.
JoyousMN
I love Sudafed. It works well. But if you really want to help your sinuses, use a sinus rinse kit.
I was getting killer infections that put me out of commission for days. My doc recommended using a rinse and it was like a miracle. Neil Med makes a great kit and you can get it at Walgreens for less than $15. They should make me their spokesperson. *grin*
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal:
That might be a good idea. When I need to take a dump I can do so late at night in the yard of my winger neighbor.
We ought to regulate lighters, lighter gas (or fluid) and matches. They are used to light up a crack pipe, bong, joint and the like.
joe from Lowell
@mr. whipple:
Really?
I think it takes a great deal of optimism even to think that the question is difficult.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Odie Hugh Manatee:
then you will have no right to complain when the grass is greener, though only in patches.
yeah, regulation of all the ways people will try to get high is stupid.
its like that thing they call the choking game, kids constricting each other’s windpipe, hopefully to the point just before they pass out….kids who would be far better off, all things considered, with a dimebag.
Left Coast Tom
Claritin-D absolutely helps my allergy to wild mustard, which grows rampant in northern CA from mid-Feb. to mid-April. Alternatives that lack pseudoephedrine seem nowhere near as effective.
Of course, wild mustard is an invasive weed that only grows on disturbed soil, so if we really need to reduce pseudoephedrine access then we could stop disturbing the soil by…saying “no” to real-estate developers, who are a large cause of the problem. That’d go a long way towards reducing my allergin exposure here in the SF Bay Area.
As for the “think of the troops” “argument”…the less said the better, so I end my comment here.
Odie Hugh Manatee
@Left Coast Tom: “then you will have no right to complain when the grass is greener, though only in patches.”
Yeah, it would be greener but would you want to let your kids play on it? Their dogs do a good enough job already. Plus I will get to laugh when the neighbor complains about some huge St. Bernard dropping loads in his yard every night.
My younger brother was in to the choking thing as a kid back in the 70’s. He did it himself using his shirt collars so maybe we should regulate shirts. I kept busting his ass and he quit doing it but it was damned creepy in the meanwhile. He also sniffed gas from cars so I guess we would need to regulate gas sales too.
My brother eventually pulled his head out of his ass and has done well in life (in upper management at a large company) and now only smokes pot like I do…lol!
mr. whipple
@joe from Lowell:
Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, are people going in and buying this stuff by the case? If so, it would seem pretty obvious where it’s going.
Left Coast Tom
@Odie Hugh Manatee: What does this have to do with what I actually posted, which had nothing to do w/ greener grass, and much to do w/ having less wild mustard around?
jibeaux
@Eric U.:
Especially if you live in a rural area, ask your local Department of Social Services about that one. The short answer from their point of view is likely to be “fuck, yes.”
cbear
Jeebus.
Wait, don’t tell me. Your last name is Gringrich, right?
Defiance
Pseudoephedrine and ephedra and present in large quantities in the Chinese traditional herb Ma Huang, and in its’ American cousin the Mormon tea plant. Meth cooks know this, the ones who don’t have easy access to Sudaphed grow and extract it.
Putting Sudaphed behind the counter didn’t limit meth cooks nearly as much as putting iodine and red phsophorus on DEA List I.
Don’t hate the molecule. Meth makes your teeth fall out but Ambien makes you rape people in your sleep. All Things In Moderation, Including Moderation.
Delia
We’ve had a law banning non-prescription sudafed in Oregon for several years now. Every time I leave the state I buy the large pack of 90-some tabs. You have to adapt.
JerseyJeffersonian
Sen. David Nohe, R-Wood, himself a former police officer, argued passionately against the bill, saying U.S. veterans fought for such freedoms.
“’You gave four years of your life and what do you think of this bill?’ Because of these hoodlums, they’re hoodlums; we want to give up our rights for them. We think we’re doing right,” Nohe said.
You know, I’d be willing to bet that Sen. Nohe would more than likely fail to see that abandoning fundamental rights ’cause people is escaired o’ them terrists isn’t a real good idea, either. And somewhat more important to the life of a great nation than the issue over which he is exercised.
Compartmentalization is a bitch.
burnspbesq
@Tonal Crow:
Wrong. There are significant negative externalities from the use of certain drugs. The state has a legitimate interest in minimizing those negative externalities.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Oops! That post was supposed to be addressed @Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal. I’ll blame it on the fact that I’m outta weed until Saturday.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. :)
Odie Hugh Manatee
@cbear:
Not even close.
Elia
Hilarious title, John. You’ve got a gift, sir.
Cacti
@mr. whipple:
Which is a pretty fucking excellent reason NOT to pass laws making cold medicine harder to get.
Mnemosyne
I can understand deciding that because, say, opium and its derivatives are highly addictive and therefore dangerous in and of themselves, we should restrict the sale of it. I don’t get deciding that an otherwise harmless drug that can also be used as a component of a much nastier one needs to be banned or severely restricted because bad people might make it into something else.
Nellcote
WV should legalize over the counter sales of sudafed. Then all the meth labs can move there and stop making toxic dumps all over the rest of the country. Just mix it in with the toxic sludge from the coal mines and no one’s the wiser.
Chuck Butcher
Back in the day there was a saying about not making friends with junkies (opiates) or speedsters (meth). Junkies will rob you blind and the speedsters ain’t gonna be around long. That was in relation to cannabis and hallucinogens.
Platonicspoof
@mr. whipple:
At the convenience store down the street from me, it was the people behind the counter who were buying it by the case.
They got very busted.
After Oregon started requiring a prescription for pseudoephedrine in 2005, the number of meth labs here dropped from one hundred and ninety-two down to ten in 2009.
Fucen Pneumatic Fuck Wrench Tarmal
@Platonicspoof:
i don’t know if that has decreased the number of meth labs or hindered supply, but it does show that law enforcement was likely only able to investigate suspected meth labs in oregon, by tracking large purchasers of pseudoephedrine.
grumpy realist
Oh, and double for the shout out with the Netipot (or equivalent.) If you start running out of the stuff in the little packets you’re supposed to make the saline solution with, mix together a pinch of baking soda and a pinch of salt, then grind it with the back of a spoon or in a mortar. (or just use hotter water and wait longer to make sure it’s all dissolved.)
soonergrunt
@Mnemosyne: Under that theory, we could ban everything, you know.
Except, of course guns for some reason.
YellowDog
I’ve heard that WV is behind the times, but this bill is so 80’s War on Drugs.
Cacti
@Platonicspoof:
And how many uninsured or underinsured in Oregon couldn’t take time off from work or shell out for a PCP visit for a cold remedy that used to cost them about 7 bucks and a quick trip to the drug store.
kc
Our troops went to war to defend our right to say dumb things about why they went to war!
Matt
What really annoys me about the whole “you can’t buy cold medicine without feeling like a criminal” routine is stuff like this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/24/AR2007072400150.html
Dude was importing enough precursors to make 80 TONS of meth; that’s the *real* scope of the problem, not some tweaked-out hillbillies buying up all the Sudafed at the local Stop’n’rob.
Tonal Crow
@burnspbesq: Wrong. That reasoning (which, BTW, is almost never backed by more than anecdotal “evidence” on the nature and extent of those “negative externalities”) gives the state power to circumscribe any and every Liberty. Further, we’ve gone your way for decades. All it’s done is waste lives, waste money, trash our Liberty, and poison the earth. Now *those* are negative externalities…of the War on Drugs.