Limiting ingredients helping meth battle

The state’s aerial marijuana eradication program led to a couple of arrests in Randolph County last week, but the amount of marijuana found growing here was miniscule compared to what state law enforcement officers had come to expect a decade ago.

State Trooper pilot Mike Manley attributed the decline to the increased popularity of methamphetamine among drug users. Meth, or crank, was not something we even heard of in earlier years.

Meth busts in the county have declined from where they were in the previous three years, however. That may be partially due to the increased knowledge of those making it about how to avoid detection. It more likely has to do with a 2005 law passed by the Alabama Legislature that makes purchase of a key ingredient in meth manufacturing much more difficult.

The ingredient is pseudoephedrine, found in many cold and allergy medicines. Now in order to buy a popular product like Sudafed, which was common on shelves of pharmacies and grocery stores just a year ago, one must show a photo ID and sign a log for the product, which is now kept behind the counters of pharmacies. It’s an inconvenience for those who need the drug for legitimate purposes, but its a deal-breaker for those who need to buy it in quantities sufficient for meth manufacturing.

An example of the effectiveness of this law is that in the first six months of its enactment, meth lab seizures in Alabama were down 28 percent.

This does not by any means indicate that meth is going away. The Drug Enforcement Administration has said meth production is Alabama’s number one drug threat. And with an increase in meth imports from Mexico, it is likely to remain so for some time.

Making the ingredients harder to obtain here does cut down on the ever present risks involved in the making of meth, however, and that’s a good start.