Oregon battles meth with Rx

In my series on Meth labs: Remediation and disclosure, I earlier posted Part 1: Public Concerns and Part 2: Legislative responses. Relating to this, a New York Times article (Aug. 17, 2005) reports that Oregon's governor yesterday signed legislation requiring prescriptions for common cold and allergy medications that can be converted into methamphetamine, specifically any medication containing pseudoephedrine. Oregon becomes the first state with such a law. The bill "sailed through" the Legislature, opposed by only a few legislators who cited the inconvenience of their constituents.

The bill signed into law was House Bill 2485, Relating to controlled substances; creating new provisions (also available in PDF, 76K, 15 pp., from the Oregon Legislative Assembly).

I will be concluding the series with Part 3: Agency responses.