The Assembly Committee on Public Safety made the right decision last month when it rejected Sen. Rod Wright's bill seeking to make California the second state in the nation to require a doctor's prescription to purchase over-the-counter medications containing pseudoephedrine. But the very real problem the bill tried to address merits taking action, albeit in a different approach.
Wright's bill, SB 484, was spurred by the fact that many methamphetamine labs get the pseudoephedrine that is among their key ingredients from popular cold and allergy medications. The labs often make these purchases in a process called "smurfing," in which small groups of people are hired to drive to several pharmacies, purchasing the maximum allowable amounts at each retailer.
In 2006, Oregon began requiring prescriptions for these products, which include Sudafed and Claritin-D. That ended "smurfing" in the state (although a few ambitious meth dealers crossed into Washington for supplies). It also became far more difficult to get a range of popular decongestants, and many Oregonians switched to medications without pseudoephedrine.
That would seem to be a small price to pay if it were the only way to halt the production of the brutally addictive meth. But even if in-state meth labs vanished, the drug would almost certainly continue to be available because Mexican "superlabs" have taken over much of the production.
Beyond that, SB 484's change would cost the state revenue, because prescription drugs, unlike over-the-counter medications, aren't taxed.
Perhaps most importantly, there are already plenty of obstacles standing in the way of "smurfing."
A federal law passed in 2006 limits the quantities of products containing pseudoephedrine that can be sold to an individual customer, requires that purchasers produce identification, which must be recorded, and mandates that the products be stored behind the counter.
Those requirements have cut "smurfing" sharply – but not completely. But since there are still diehards willing to brave it, Oklahoma and Arkansas put up a second wall of defense. The two states have built Web sites that list purchasers of pseudoephedrine-containing products and require pharmacists to determine if the individual trying to buy them has done so before. This has cut "smurfing" so much in Oklahoma that meth labs in the state are down 90 percent from where they were in 2004.
Should Wright try to offer his bill again, he should consider this approach. Methamphetamine labs are a scourge. But they're a scourge that can be confronted with far less inconvenience than his bill would create.
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