Souder says Congress backs anti-meth bill
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The rest of the country soon could face decongestant sale restrictions familiar to Hoosiers if the congressman representing Fort Wayne is right about Senate support for the Patriot Act.
U.S. Rep. Mark Souder chairs the House Drug Policy subcommittee, which held 10 hearings across the country this summer to show methamphetamine abuse was too widespread for Congress to consider it a regional problem.
Meth is powerful, addictive and cheap to make, with multiple side effects, including psychotic behavior. Meth labs generate toxic material and endanger the children who live with the people who make it.
"When you see the pictures of these individuals with meth mouth (tooth decay caused by meth use), it is scary to think you're driving down with road with people who are high on meth," Souder said Thursday.
After making his point with the hearings, Souder introduced the Methamphetamine Epidemic Elimination Act in September, which was combined with a Senate version to become the Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act included in a conference report on the Patriot Act approved by the House on Wednesday.
Because cold and allergy medicine with pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine can be used to make meth, Indiana started restricting consumers this summer from buying more than they would need for cold or allergy relief.
The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act takes that concept national. It would require retailers to keep all pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine products behind a counter or in a locked cabinet, and provide special training for all employees handling them.
It limits consumer purchases to no more than 9 grams a month and 3.6 grams on any given day, and requires purchasers to show identification and sign a logbook.
The bill also would give $99 million a year for five years to arrest and prosecute dealers and traffickers, plus $20 million for two years to help children affected by the meth trade.
It requires monitoring of pseudoephedrine, ephedrine and phenylpropanolamine sales by producers and at the wholesale level. And it closes a number of loopholes in existing import, export and wholesale regulations of the medicine.
Only eight or nine companies make the medicine. Countries that don't comply with the monitoring requirements could be put on a list of those decertified for trading with the United States.
Because a lot of the medicine is made in China and a lot of it is imported by Mexico, lobbies for those countries in the U.S. State Department opposed the bill, Souder said. His office said Mexico imports three times the cold and allergy medicine that it could use for legitimate purposes.
But, "the groups that have been most outspoken against it are different pharmaceutical companies, who may not want their products regulated," he said.
"In Indiana, I was told the new regulations reduced the number of ... cold medicines on the shelves from 120 down to 20."
Souder said he considered the cost to retailers and the pharmaceutical industry as he crafted the legislation, and realized "one of biggest problems, when you do testing of costs, is the costs are borne by different people."
In addition to addiction, the treatment costs for it, lost worker productivity and loss of life to the drug and related accidents and murders, there are environmental and law enforcement costs not associated with other drugs.
Noble County has been among the areas of Indiana hardest hit by small meth labs, and there, "police have had a huge overtime problem because they have to wait so long for the cleanups," Souder said.
Environmental cleanup requires teams equipped to deal with hazardous materials, and officers who have to wait for them could spend their time better on enforcement, he said. "You've got a whole bunch of people running around the county dealing where you can't catch them because (police) are sitting at labs."
With restrictions on decongestant sales already in place in 38 states, the bill has broad support in Congress, Souder said.
But, "the reason it's on a conference report rather than standing by itself is a conference report restricts debate, and you can't add amendments to a conference report," he said.
If the Senate passes the House-Senate agreement on the Patriot Act, it would be sent to President Bush to sign into law, and the restrictions on decongestant sales would go into effect Sept. 30.
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