…We have the common cold and allergy sufferer, who will have a much harder time getting the medication they need, due to a “Combat Meth” amendment snuck into the Patriot Act:

TalkLeft has previously criticized North Carolina's use of its “weapons of mass destruction” law to charge a meth lab owner (follow-up here), as well as Oklahoma's law and John Edwards and John Kerry's plan to introduce a federal restriction on buying cold pills.

As TChris wrote here, the meth crisis is a myth. The only effect this bill will have on those who cook meth is to cause them to steal the pills instead of buy them. Plus, here's who will get busted under the cold pill laws – convenience store clerks, probably those that have difficulty understanding English, who thought the undercover cop was talking about a barbecue when he mentioned a “cook.”

Henry Hyde tried to slip a provision into the Patriot Act that increased drug law penalties by designating them “narco-terrorism offenses.” The Patriot Act has been used to bust a marijuana smuggling ring.

We need to be vigilant about keeping terror laws and drug laws separate, except in such instances where the two clearly are linked. We already have laws that penalize terrorism and laws that penalize illicit drug activity. There is no need to combine them.

In Oregon, and other states, there’s talk of making pseudoephedrine “prescription only,” None of this will do anything to stem the use of methamphetamine. Besides increasing the incidence of burglaries, as Jeralyn notes, it will simply move more production south of the border – where most of the meth is produced already – further enriching ruthless Mexican drug gangs.

This is of grave concern to me. I don’t have to worry, at this point, because while I rely on 120mg/day of pseudoephedrine, along with some other medications, to control my chronic sinus drainage, I get mine on prescription already. However, it’s but a step from requiring prescriptions to outlawing altogether – “first they came for the…”

The surest way to reduce consumption of meth? Make cocaine legal.