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It's been four years since Oregon made pseudoephedrine prescription only. Pseudoephedrine is not only the active ingredient in many cold remedies; it's also a very effective way to make the street drug meth. Since pseudoephedrine was taken out of the retail stores, law enforcement officers say the number of meth labs in the state has fallen dramatically. In Lincoln County, for example, District Attorney Rob Bovett says the previous average of a couple dozen meth lab busts a year has dropped to exactly none. But the supply of meth hasn't gone away and the effect of the law on addiction rates and treatment outcomes isn't clear.
Laws have been introduced in California and Washington — and in a handful of other states across the nation — but so far Oregon remains the only state to make pseudoephedrine legally available only by prescription. Senator Ron Wyden announced recently he wants to see a national law modeled after Oregon's.
Are you living in a community that has been affected by meth? Has someone close to you been hooked on meth or have you yourself struggled with meth addiction? Are you in law enforcement? What changes have you seen in the last four years with respect to Oregon's meth problem? What else needs to be done?
GUESTS:
- Rob Bovett: Lincoln County District Attorney
- Dezi: Mother of two young children and recovering methamphetamine addict
- Heather Crow-Martinez: Program Director for BestCare Treatment Services in Madras
- Rick Rawson: Co-director of the Integrated Substance Abuse Program at the UCLA School of Medicine
Tagged as: addiction · drugs · meth
Photo credit: comedy_nose / Creative Commons
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My apologies for being direct, but where do you live? I have a standing script for time release Pe (to address chronic rhinitis) that's been honored by three pharmacies I've used on the west side of the metro area.
Agree whole-heartedly that Pe's OTC replacement is useless.
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There should be a harsher punishment for drug traders and even for known consumers a forced trip to a drug rehab Gilbert center.
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I would be willing to bet that the reason we have not seen a decline in the availibility of meth is due to the pourus southern border. untill we stop illegal imigration the scourge of drugs will always be with us. remember that is how the drug lords where paying for there wars down there just a few months ago.
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stevenmiles is right on!
Check your paradigm, this policy may be winning a skirmish in the so called War on Drugs, but the meth problem itself is a by-product of this War: The government in 1988 made it more difficult to obtain the P2P precursor used to produce amphetamines, creative chemists switched to ephedrine, and the latest civilization-imperiling “plague” was born.
You can predict the same thing to happen again. Making meth hard to obtain is just spurring efficiency innovation in the industry. “Mom and Pop” meth labs are being eliminated in favor of more “professional” ones operating by criminal organizations from Latin America and Asia. They enjoy economies of scale and reduced competition and we, the public, enjoy increased gang activity and the narco-militarization of our neighborhoods and neighboring countries. Also, creative chemist have invented “shake and bake,” one pot meth making. The thinking that limiting the distribution is limiting the distribution is just wrong. Didn’t we already try Prohibition?
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I think a product generally requires a customer. The blame, if there is any, lies not at the border, not with the 'importers,' but, with the American Methamphetamine consumer. If they don't drink it, they won't brew it.
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The restriction of Pseudoephedrine stems from regressive reasoning. Many advocate the legalization of drugs, and in this circumstance, we are instead making legal drugs illegal. The law is hysterical---especially, when you consider this country won't control guns---objects whose end goal is explicit, to kill or at least injure, and by any reasonable interpretation have no other use. Yet, with a decongestant that works for many people, we are willing to ban it, in order to ease the production of Methamphetamine.
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I am a medical Provider and I relocated from California this past year. I think keeping Pseudophedrine by RX only wastes tax payer dollars as many patients come in to get an RX and this is ridiculous. I understand the need to control this medication but in California, it is strictly regulated at the Pharmacy. They take your driver's license and have you sign their log in order to get it. Making Medical provider's be the "gatekeeper's" is a waste of time and a waste of medical insurance for those who even have it. I think the Senator who wants to create a name for himself, by making it a national crusade needs to take a step back and look at what it adds to the health care costs not to mention, delayed care as the over-the-counter versions of a decongestant do not work ,and patient's would like to avoid seeking medical care for nasal congestion if they can. I am for regulation, just not regulation by Medical provider's.Change it back or Leave it in the hands of the Pharmacies.
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I agree that the emphasis on prohibition is the wrong approach; The war on drugs has failed. We need to spend the money on education and treatment; when it comes down to it people would rather have a happy life than have to escape through a drug.
Look to Portugal as a model for "legalization", education, and treatment. Their rate of drug use has gone down.
The psuedoephedrine ban is a failure as it has only shifted the manufacture to other areas of the country and world. Another effect is that we now have to see a doctor to get cold medicine that has proven safe and effective, and sold over the counter for many years.
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Meth is still just as bad as it was before... It's just become more mobile. My car was stolen out of my driveway, found 6 days later after it had been turned into a mobile meth lab. The police suspected it was teenagers. Something more severe needs to be done. It's ruining my neighborhood, and my life indirectly. I donated the car to a company that would decontaminate it because it was a biohazard for myself and other people. I hadn't saved the money to be able to purchase a new car, and now I am in debt because some meth head stole my car. How is that fair?
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Drugs for asthma (bronchodilators) are also restricted. Nobody ever died from a cold, but asthma is a serious health issue. Doctors will prescribe other fast-acting drugs for immediate relief, but Primatene/Bronkaid is cheap and pretty effective. If you don't have health insurance and can't afford the out of pocket cost for inhalers or a doctor visit, it's nice to have access to these drugs OTC.
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When Oregon's ban on Pseudoephedrine was implemented my friends and I horded our supplies. Most of my friends are in their 20's and either don't have health insurance or can't afford to see a Doctor just to get a prescription for cold medicine. We shared our supplies for as long as we could. This added expense unfairly affects us all.
Our society chooses which drugs we are allowed access too. We are allowed to drink alcohol, but not buy cold medicine over the counter despite the fact that so many people are raging alcoholics. Users will use and I think funds should be invested in treatment, not banning the substances themselves.
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I used to like Sudafed for colds, I could go to work without feeling drowsey like all the other pseudo-meds made me feel. So, it bugs me that it has been given the bad reputation it now has.
As to the meth problems; I have been wondering if maybe the more effective way to address the problems is to look at them as the symptoms rather than as the problems. The first guest today started right off saying that her home life was bad and she was already using drugs to deal with that when she started out on meth. Psychologists call that self-medicating.
So the question I have is how can we make peoples lives better so that they don't feel the need to self-medicate? If a person is having a great life and is well trained and equiped to deal with any of the normal psychological problems that come up, like having a bad day, or, well, any of the distresses that come into a normal human life, wouldn't the percentage of people who choose to self-medicate with drugs go way down? Maybe prevention is a harder route to go because of our current social norms but I suspect that it is the more effective way to go in the long term.
Maybe if we build up better people most of these problems will just drop off and disappear.
Which brings me to wondering if the last thirty years of descent into Conservatism which has coincided with the rise of drugs like meth are not just a coincidence but are related as cause and effect. That is to say, Conservatism is the problem and meth is one of the symptoms.
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Ron Wyden has clearly never been uninsured.
When I was living well below the poverty level I had neither insurance to go to a doctor, or the ability to take time off of work when I had a cold.
When you can't afford to take time off of work, sometimes a little Tylenol and a decongestant are the difference between feeling well enough to go to work and feed your family or not. According to a Portland pharmacist, the decongestants sold over the counter in Oregon "simply don't work".
I don't see what the substantive difference is between making pseudoephedrine prescription only and having to register for it at the pharmacy with your driver's license and getting only a few boxes a year (as seems to be the case in other states). Getting only a few boxes a year would probably stop smurfing.
Both would severely limit access, but severely restricting access through a pharmacy would preserve access for the poor, who need it most.
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As a college student without health insurance, how do I access Sudafed when I have a cold without going to the emergency room?
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The thing about recovery programs is that they deal with the person after they have been damaged. Too many people have been too seriously damaged and we know that the percentages of success with recovery programs is just horribly low.
I can applaud those efforts but really we need to go to prevention programs. And that is not just Nancy Reagans', idiotic and ineffective "just say no" sloganeering, it has to be prevention addressed to all aspects of peoples lives.
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Folks,
We ran out of time before I could ask Rob Bovette about insurance/access questions for people with legitimate pseudoephedrine needs, but I'll do it after the show and post his response.
Dave
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Interesting discussion. This show wasn't focused on treatment, but I wanted to let other treatment providers know that there's a free outpatient treatment program for meth users (ages 15 to 22) in Portland at the Center for Family and Adolescent Research (503-243-1065; www.ori.org/CFAR/Portland).
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So I did talk to Rob Bovette after the show, and he acknowledged that making pseudoephedrine available by prescription only does in fact constitute a sacrifice for some people — him included. He suffers from allergies, and told me that over-the-counter medications don't work as well for him. But he argued that Oregon's pseudoephedrine laws are about striking a balance between preventing the ravages of local meth labs and maintaining the availability of decongestants for legitimate use.
When he looks at those competing goals, he's satisfied with the compromise.
Are you?
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Prescription drug abuse is considered as one of the biggest threat in recent time. Legalization of pseudoephedrine will make the situation more grave. Government have to set new rules to control the use of prescription pseudoephedrine. Otherwise the rate of addiction in Oregon will increase in number. Narconon
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Drugs will always be on the streets. These laws slow down the fabrication but it doesn't stop it. Unfortunately,there will always be an other way to make them. The fact that the pseudoephedrine is prescription only helps so many people not to develop an addiction. So yes, I'm satisfied with this compromise. Th. Wiley, inpatient drug rehab volunteer
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Comments are now closed.
I work in the public safety field and have been on the front lines of Oregon's meth troubles for many years. Before the prohibition, I worried about the very fabric of our society, such was meth's scourge. Meth addiction hasn't gone away by any means, but its intensity and its negative effect on children have been greatly reduced.
However, the prohibition has had its own negative effect on me. I'm a round-the-clock allergy sufferer. Pseudoephedrine's replacement is jut not very effective. I rely on 12-hour time-release medication to help me sleep, but no pharmacy in the state will sell the 12-hour time release even though I have a prescription. The law also discriminates against people without health insurance. I'm hoping the need for effective, safe medication and the need to harness the ravages of meth can better co-exist. (If you decide to use my comment, please do not use my username. Thank you.)