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Rep. Foxx praises new law limiting sale of methamphetamine precursor
Washington, DC,
March 11, 2006
U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx on Thursday praised several measures to combat methamphetamine that were included in the USA Patriot Act.
The Mt. Airy News  U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx on Thursday praised several measures to combat methamphetamine that were included in the USA Patriot Act. President Bush signed the legislation into law Thursday. Foxx joined Majority Whip Roy Blunt and House Judiciary Committee Chairman James Sensenbrenner at a news conference Thursday morning. “Methamphetamine abuse is a growing problem across our country,” Foxx said. “In my home county (Watauga) in northwest North Carolina, we generally have a very low crime rate. However, in recent years, we have had several methamphetamine-related homicides and robberies. “This drug is wreaking havoc in our local neighborhoods and is endangering the lives of many, including our innocent children and our brave law enforcement officials. The challenge meth poses is strong, serious and immediate and so too must be our response. My colleagues and I are meeting that challenge and, with the president’s signature today, we are keeping our constituents and law enforcement officials safer.” According to statistics on the Druge Enforcement Agency Web site, 322 meth labs were sezied in North Carolina in 2005, an increase of 79 from 2004. Just five years ago, in 2001, the state seized only 32 meth labs. “The meth provisions in the Patriot Act will make it more difficult to obtain the ingredients necessary to manufacture the drug,” Foxx said. “This bill will also crack down on meth cooks, traffickers and smugglers by strengthening federal criminal penalties.” The DEA site claims that while meth problems have risen drastically in urban areas of the state, “rural communities in many counties of the western part of the state have experienced a surge in methamphetamine trafficking.” The DEA notes that the small labs are of main concern in western North Carolina. “Smaller methamphetamine laboratories are a significant threat in the western portion of the state,” the site said. “Although on average they produce only gram to ounce quantities of methamphetamine, they were doubling in number over recent years until they stabilized by December 2005. They contribute to crime and social problems in rural counties and create a considerable resource drain on state and local governments. DEA has joined in an aggressive campaign against meth lab ‘cooks.’” The law also takes aim at the methamphetamine trade by imposing new restrictions on the sale of over-the-counter cold and allergy medicines that contain pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient for making meth. Customers will be limited to buying 300 30-milligram pills in a month or 120 such pills in a day. The law does make an exception for “single-use” sales of individually packaged pseudoephedrine products. By Sept. 30, retailers will be required to sell such medicines from behind the counter and purchasers would have to show ID and sign log books. Foxx said she hopes the new law will help discourage local meth production. “I have seen the ravages of meth first hand,” she said, talking about volunteer firefighter Darien South who removed his oxygen mask at a 2003 meth lab fire in a mobile home and inhaled hydrochloric acid fumes that burned his windpipe, esopagus and lungs. It took two years before he could work again. “He was just doing his job, but now he is going to suffer for the rest of his life. The people who are responsible for the meth lab will only spend two years in prison. We must protect our children and law enforcement officials,” Foxx said. Congressman Brian Baird, D-Wash., and Mark Souder, RInd., co-authored and co-sponsored the Combat Meth Epidemic Act supported by the bipartisan Congressional Meth Caucus and later incorporated in the USA Patriot Act.
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