For police, new anti-meth law nothing to sneeze at

An anti-methamphetamine law that takes effect today could make it harder for some people to buy cold medicines while making it easier for state and local law enforcement to crack down on meth makers.

The sweeping law addresses many aspects of methamphetamine production, from restricting over-the-counter sales of its key ingredient to stiffening penalties for selling or buying chemicals used to make the drug.

"Meth has been in our community for 10 years, and we're seeing the effects of it now," said Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto, who supported the bill during this year's Legislature.

Much of the new law mirrors the Combat Meth Act of 2005 passed by Congress. The federal law required all medicines with the decongestant pseudoephedrine to be placed behind the counter. It also made buyers show identification and sign a logbook.

Pseudoephedrine is the key ingredient in methamphetamine, an addictive stimulant with a powerful high.

The state law includes the federal requirements but goes a step further by allowing only pharmacies to sell pseudoephedrine. Consumers used to buying the decongestant from convenience or grocery stores will have to visit a pharmacy to get their medicine from now on.

Most grocery and convenience stores stopped selling pseudoephedrine after the federal law took effect last year, however, because of the cumbersome logbook requirement, said Liz MacMenamin of the Retailers Association of Nevada.

Those stores can sell a pseudoephedrine alternative called phenylephrine, which is in medicines such as Sudafed PE but it is not as effective or long-lasting, she said.

The new law makes using false identification to buy pseudoephedrine a state crime. Before, it was a federal crime that could be prosecuted only by U.S. attorneys.

The law also stiffens penalties for people caught selling or buying chemicals used to make methamphetamine, making it a felony carrying a three- to 15-year prison sentence.

"This gives the attorney general the teeth she needs that she didn't have before," MacMenamin said.

Pharmacists must also report large thefts of pseudoephedrine to the Nevada Department of Public Safety.

Most consumers won't notice the changes in the law, because pharmacies have restricted access to pseudoephedrine, either voluntarily or because of federal law, for about three years, said Josh Stanley, a spokesman for the Nevada Pharmacist Association.

"Some think it's kind of a feel-good law because they can get their pseudoephedrine elsewhere," such as Mexico, Stanley said of homegrown meth makers.

In recent years, stricter U.S. laws and controls on chemicals used to make methamphetamine have eliminated most local meth labs. In Nevada, meth labs busted by authorities peaked at 125 in 2003 and fell to 35 last year.

Almost all meth now comes from Mexico, where drug cartels produce large amounts of meth every day in superlabs and smuggle it across the border.