Doing the wrong thing for the right reason is still the wrong thing. That’s how we view the Indiana House of Representatives’ passage last week of a bill that would establish an electronic tracking system for the sale of pseudoephedrine, a prime ingredient in the manufacture of methamphetamine, a drug which, as former Vigo County Sheriff Jon Marvel wrote on these opinion pages two months ago, “is completely out of control here in Indiana.”
When it comes to crime, we, like most citizens, tend to listen to those who fight it in the trenches: the police. The House didn’t. Against compelling evidence from the Indiana State Police Alliance and others, the House chose the wrong path. The bill had already passed the Indiana Senate, where it originated.
Under an electronic system, sales of pseudoephedrine — an ingredient in cold medicines so important because it is the constant ingredient in any of several recipes for meth — would be tracked by computer; merchants would be alerted of someone trying to buy more than the legal limit.
Sounds reasonable, even progressive. Except the evidence — the meth math, you might call it — is that Kentucky has seen a 248-percent increase in meth lab seizures since adopting electronic tracking 21⁄2 years ago.
A flaw in the electronic tracking system is that more than one person can buy pseudoephedrine for the same lab, defeating the system. Criminals can and do collaborate.
More difficult for criminals than electronic tracking — if you listen to police specialists — is making pseudoephedrine a prescription-only drug, which the Indiana House and Senate have both rejected this year. Pseudoephedrine was prescription-only in Indiana before 1976, and the evidence is that a return to that status would do for us what it has done for other states. Mississippi saw a 68-percent decrease in meth labs within the first six months of establishing pseudoephedrine by prescription. In Oregon’s first six months under prescription-only, there has been a 72-percent decrease. In Oregon’s next six months, another 40-percent drop.
The public, of course, needs pseudoephedrine to fight illness. So the balance is between the best way to fight meth crimes and providing easy access to medication. Which does greater harm: more meth crimes or consumer inconvenience?
A sponsor of the electronic tracking bill, Sen. Carlin Yoder, told Tribune-Star Statehouse reporter Maureen Hayden: “Let’s try this first before we decide to make it harder for legitimate users of these medicines.”
But there’s no time to “try this first,” not with meth lab seizures and arrests growing in Indiana as they have — from 820 meth lab seizures in 2007 to 1,346 in 2010, and from 534 arrests in 2007 to 1,212 in 2010, as chronicled by our reporter Lisa Trigg in stories we published in February.
Besides seizures and arrests, there are other damages. As Trigg reported, too many children are raised in meth-infested homes, exposed to toxic chemicals, neglected by their adults, offered sexually as payment for drugs, subjected to filth and preconditioned to lives as addicts and abusers.
Meth also is a business problem. Labs cooking in rental units or hotels force owners to have properties cleansed of toxicity in such items as carpet, drapes and furniture, adding thousands of dollars of expense. That’s one reason Rod Henry of the Terre Haute Chamber of Commerce joined the police in advocating the prescription-only bill. “This goes back to our mission to preserve, promote and protect business from obstacles to growth and development,” Henry told Hayden. “We have an obstacle, and that’s meth.”
We all can agree meth is an obstacle, and we are sure those who favor electronic tracking are sincere in their desire to see the drug eliminated.
But Indiana is wasting time. Police who see the crime and its effects up close are better judges of what works. And that is to make pseudoephedrine available by prescription-only. Unfortunately, the legislature has chosen otherwise.
Opinion
Tribune-Star editorial: Wasting time in meth fight
Tracking system too timid in state’s battle strategy
- Opinion
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