PLEASE, don't even mention the word sneeze to me. I have sneezed once since my operation and I cannot describe the pain of a good deep sneeze whilst one's chest is held together by bailing wire!

From your second link:

Oklahoma requires individuals to purchase products containing psuedoephedrine directly from a pharmacist. Customers must show a photo identification and sign for the product. Sales are limited to 9 grams of medication - or about six, 24-tablet packages - every 30 days.

I wouldn't call that a "ban" - anyone can still buy the stuff when they want it.

I'd agree that a ban would be silly, and an example of excessive "government oversight" - but making you get it from a pharmacist (without a prescription) and limiting you to 24 x 6 = 144 tablets per month? When the recommended dosage maxes out at 8 pills per 12 hours?

If you need to take it at the maximum dosage for more than 18 days in any month, then you should be working with a doctor anyhow.

Seems a minor imposition for a potentially large payoff in fewer addicts, fewer accidents making the meth and a more available police force.

Craig, that hurts just thinking about it.

I can still remember my double-hernia surgery from about five years ago. I believe it was nothing less than divine intervention that allowed me to go for five full days after the surgery without sneezing! (I've never done that before or since.)

Then again, maybe I just have a strong instinct for survival.

BB, as I said, it is a ban on OTC sales, in a specific sense. You have to deal with a pharmacist to get it.

But, as you point out, this is much preferred to an outright can't-get-it-anywhere ban.

That comes next.

A few restrictions on the sale of the "preferred (whatever it is today) of drug dealers" are often the precursor to an outright ban on private sales. It's what, in a different political context, Handgun Control Incorporated President Richard Aborn called "the nose of the camel under that tent".

Once the first set of restrictions are in place, someone invariably proposes, as he did, "Today we would like to tell you what the rest of the camel looks like."

It always seems that a politician's first approach to fighting crime is to further penalize (or in this case inconvenience) the law-abiding. It wouldn't be a stretch to see a proposal for a back-ground check next.

...with of course, a modest $10-15 background check fee per purchase.

Even worse, restricting and banning Sudafed won't have any impact on the meth made in Mexico which, in Texas, is predominant type available.

Here's an alternative solution. How about a mandatory life sentence for producing methamphetamine? No parole, no plea-bargains, no cop outs. It would certainly curtail the locally made product even if it did rile up "Families Against Mandatory Minimums" (FAMM).

"Then again, maybe I just have a strong instinct for survival."

Strong survival instinct. I admire that in a person. ;-)

I won't dispute that there are significant sources of meth other than the homegrown variety, but it's also a fact that, locally, we're seeing at least one meth lab busted every week, complete with hazmat remediation to the nth degree. It's a serious and disturbing and relatively new problem in these parts.

But I agree with the concept behind your suggestion. I wish there was some way to make the offense so painful for the criminal that he'd just stop doing it. But you and I both know it ain't gonna happen, and law-abiding citizens will continue to suffer on both sides of the fence, where the remedy is almost as bad as the malady.

Hence my comment alluding to a breakneck rush toward hell in a handbasket. At some point, God will intervene to sort things out, once and for all, and the innocent will be justified at last. Don't look for it to happen, except in tiny revelations of tender mercy, before then.

Mr. Freen is right. It would be so very much better if the threat of punishment for the actual crime were a better deterrent. Restricting the law-abiding is an annoying knee-jerk reaction of too many people.

Not living in the area that would be affected by the "ban," I don't know enough about the specifics to take a strong position either way. It's easy to imagine circumstances that would drive me - hard - in either direction on this one.

Funny that you'd make the gun control comparison. I've been reading up on that one a lot lately, and am amazed at the silly and just-plain-wrong things that people advocate in that area. (The 'assault weapons' ban was my eye-opener when it was up for expiration.)

Dang it. The price of meth is going up now.

I'm kidding I'm kidding.

Anyway ban it, please. It wouldn't be hard for people actually needing it for it's real purpose to obtain it through a doctor. And anyone who is smart enough to fool a doctor to obtain it for "cooking" purposes would not be able to obtain it in large quanities. Yes please put a ban on it and make it a perscription drug.

And mandatory minimums are bull, especially giving life for manufacturing. You could kill someone and get less than that. You could rape a child and get less than that. The answer lies in a lot of probatition. Probation officers actually have the authority to enter you're house at ANY TIME THEY WANT TO, and if you tell them "no" that means you're hiding something and you get a violation and go back to jail.

Give 'em 5 years of probation, intense therapy, and weekly checks of their residence.

If they mess up twice, that is when mandatory minimums should come into play. But not life. That should be the third time.

Strike three, you're out.