Pols Cook Up Misguided Meth Bill

I’ve had asthma my whole life, but for the past 15 years or so it has been mild enough to control with over-the-counter medication.

I tell you this because I want to be upfront about my bias — my wheezing, unadulterated rage, really — at a law being debated right now in Sacramento that will require a prescription for the purchase of any medication that contains ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, norpseudoephedrine or phenylpropanolamine (let’s just call all this "ephedrine" for the purpose of this article). Zyrtec-D, Claritin-D, Sudafed and Advil Cold and Sinus are some of the drugs you will need a doctor’s permission to purchase under the proposed law, all because some people use these drugs to make methamphetamine.

The bill, SB 484, has already passed the Senate, where state Sen. Mark Leno voted in favor (say it ain’t so, Mark!) and state Sen. Leland Yee voted against.

On Tuesday, it will be in front of two former San Francisco supervisors (Assembly members Tom Ammiano and Fiona Ma) during a Public Safety Committee meeting.

The law is modeled after one passed in Oregon in 2005. And since Oregon and California are basically twins, some folks think it would be a good idea to try it here because our state government is humming along with no bigger issues. To be clear: Meth is a huge problem that has affected even my own family and I agree that we should be working to fight this scourge, but SB 484 is misguided nonsense.

 In Oregon, where this very law has been "successful," local meth production is down. But according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, the market "has been increasingly supplied with methamphetamine from other southwestern states and Mexico." (Senate Analyst Report: Download SB 484 Senate Bill - Bill Analysis.)  And a recent study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that the rate of meth use in Oregon is greater than California. (Great. Next we’ll be copying Louisiana’s emergency-evacuation program.)

In 2005, the federal government prohibited the purchase of more than 7.5 grams of ephedrine per month and made it so you have to show identification and sign a promise to be good with your sniffles medicine. (21 U.S.C. sec. 830(e).) The number of labs busted in California declined 83 percent from 2003 to 2007. Oregon saw a 95 percent total reduction during the same period. (See Analyst Report, above.) So we’re talking about a difference of 12 percent, or 64 labs in California, potentially attributable to requiring a prescription. And that’s only if we assume zero difference in law-enforcement resources.

Bearing in mind that there’s no evidence that meth use diminishes with the elimination of local labs (there is some evidence that use actually increases with the more pure product from Mexico — just ask Iowa), let’s look at some of the costs associated with requiring a prescription: 

• In 2008, the state received about $4.5 million in sales-tax revenue from ephedrine products. Prescriptions are not taxed, so that money’s gone.
• California’s 8 million uninsured surely count asthma and allergy sufferers among their ranks, and trips to the emergency room when an attack strikes will be paid for by the collective goodwill of taxpayers. Medicaid costs will rise, too.
• Aside from the collective costs, there are the personal costs borne by you and me when we want medicine that works. Studies confirm what we all know: Drugs containing the "substitute" phenylephrine instead of ephedrine don’t work as well and have to be taken more frequently. These costs include time off work, co-pay for a doctor visit and the cost of the drug itself (reportedly, Sudafed costs $25 in Oregon), not to mention the toll all of this ridiculousness takes on one’s mental health.

Instead of limiting effective medicine to the persistent and insured, other states like Kentucky and Massachusetts actually target the problem — people who hoard ephedrine from multiple sources — and have simply created computer systems that better track such purchases. There’s a thought.

Note that, in addition to free time and evil, meth producers also require things like fingernail polish, paint thinner, table salt, vehicle starter fluid, matches, and pots and pans. Let’s hope The City’s representatives help defeat SB 484, or else we’ll soon need a note from our mothers to engineer a pedicure.