Wal-Mart Joins the Methamphetamine Wars

Wal-Mart joins the war on methamphetamine by joining other retail stores in moving non-prescription cold and allergy medicines behind the pharmacy counter. These medicines contain a chemical precursor necessary in methamphetamine manufacture.

The Houston Chronicle has the story here:

The world’s largest retailer — which has nearly 4,000 stores in the United States and another 1,600 international locations — will join rivals Target Corp. and Albertson’s Inc. in making such a move throughout all locations.

All three retailers are trying to make it more difficult for customers to easily obtain medications containing pseudoephedrine, which is a key component for making methamphetamine, a powerfully addictive drug. Popular over-the-counter medications such as Sudafed, Sinutab and Afrin nasal spray list pseudoephedrine among their active ingredients.

Wal-Mart, which had already been making the changes, estimates 60 percent of its stores are already selling such abused products behind the counter.

“We will continue with our plan to move the most commonly abused products containing pseudoephedrine behind the pharmacy counter in all our stores by early June,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Jacquie Young. “The remaining solid dose products containing multi-ingredients will be moved behind the pharmacy counter by September.”

Wal-Mart had not previously announced a timetable for making the changes.

Young said Wal-Mart has also been in discussions with suppliers “regarding the reformulating of these products with alternative ingredients.” Pfizer is reformulating its entire Sudafed line and expects most of the products to be changed by year’s end.

The move comes as a number of states have imposed restrictions on the sale of some cold medicines, which have resulted in a drop in the number of meth lab seizures. Six states allow only pharmacies to sell drugs with pseudoephedrine, and seven others make retailers lock up the products or sell them from staffed counters. Legislatures in 22 states are considering similar restrictions.

It is estimated the nation has some 1.5 million meth addicts, which represents about 8 percent of the nation’s 19 million drug users. The drug is made by taking over-the-counter cold medicines and boiling them down using highly toxic chemicals to siphon out the pseudoephedrine.

Kudos to Wal-Mart and all of the other stores. This will help eliminate the mom and pop labs.

Now, we need additional federal legislaton and executive enforcement.