Hey, sounds great, right? Anything to curb people from making meth is a good thing right?
Methamphetamine. South Dakota is experiencing a significant increase in the number of meth lab incidences as well as meth arrests.
“As Attorney General, I do not support requiring a doctor’s prescription for basic cold medicine. The more reasonable approach is to utilize electronic record keeping of information already being provided in order to address inappropriate use of cold medicine for methamphetamine manufacturing,†said Attorney General Jackley. Cold medicines containing Pseudoephedrine are often utilized in the manufacturing of
methamphetamine. South Dakota law currently provides for a written record keeping system for the
sale of Pseudoephedrine products that cannot be efficiently checked by either retailers or law enforcement. The proposed legislation addresses the problem through electronic record keeping and further allows for a waiver if a retailer does not have these electronic capabilities. There will be no additional cost to the retailers, consumers or taxpayers for the electronic record keeping system being funded by the industry.
Interesting stuff, especially when you connect the dots.
What are the key components of adding up these dots? Let’s see, they want to implement electronic record keeping, retailers will have access to the information and lastly it will all be paid for by the ‘industry’.
What industry you ask? Big Pharma. See, this legislation is model legislation through ALEC. Who gives ALEC and ALEC members (state legislators) lots of campaign donations? Big Pharma. Who has received a lot of big Pharma money in the past? AG Jackboots. Can you imagine the usefulness of this kind of information to Big Pharma? Being able to track the sales of their over the counter drugs (being sold mostly to innocent consumers not interested in making meth) right down to the actual person purchasing the product, all the while requiring retailers to train their employees to do this extra work, ultimately costing them more in labor costs.
Once again, ALEC is well on it’s way to hoodwink our State Legislators and voters on this legislation.
GP will be posting an extended/closer look at this issue in the near future.
Exactly.
Huh: Zoloft, Prozac, Effexor, Ritalin and Paxil all seem to weave through gun violence. They all love the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), too.
There have been movements afoot in red state legislatures to limit lawsuits against medical providers and the pharmaceutical industry usurping the power of end-users to sue for damages caused by their products: the gun industry is already immune to such class actions even as they collude in violent deaths.
Is this a great country or what?
So, South Dakota’s addiction to the feds, continued….
http://nashvillepublicradio.org/blog/2014/01/13/would-prescriptions-slow-down-meth-in-tennessee-study-finds-tossup/
It’s always interesting when the party that preaches no government interference introduces laws that do just that. Yet god knows we can’t have similar info regarding guns.
Scott, yeah, talk about the irony, you have to be put in a data base when you buy cold medicine because you could be a suspected meth manufacturer, but buying a gun? How dare you assume that everyone who owns a gun might use it in a violent manner towards others. The Shame! Like I said above, this is just about a handout to big Pharma.
Big brother Jackley; who would have guessed. Two bits that the next step is sharing the information with the NSA and the law enforcement, surveillance, prosecutor complex. How unrepublican.
Whole lotta reaching in this topic. If sharing my cold relief purchase keeps someone from cooking meth, go for it.
Oregon has the same law. I did not realize this was a political thing. They are not really very conservative.
LJL, so you are okay with the government suspecting that EVERYONE who purchases cold medicine is a meth manufacturer? Wouldn’t the solution be making cold medicine prescription only? This is about big pharma getting big government to track sales for them.
It frightens me when people say it is ok for the government to keep track of an action in hopes of it preventing another action. Every day I become less ‘republican’ (whatever that means) and more libertarian. To paraphrase an old saying “he who is willing to sacrifice liberty for security deserves neither”. Wake up people.
Scott: “Yet god knows we can’t have similar info regarding guns.”
DL: “you have to be put in a data base when you buy cold medicine because you could be a suspected meth manufacturer, but buying a gun? How dare you assume that everyone who owns a gun might use it in a violent manner towards others.”
I guess I miss your point here because we already collect much more information about guns than we do about cold medicine. They already require anyone who purchases a gun to get a background check and to provide identification. That information is all collected and is available to law enforcement if and when needed.
Then as to the labor and costs the retailers must bear, I must have missed the point where you complained about the burden on the retailers to collect the information and perform the background checks on firearms, or the increased labor costs to them to manage all of that paperwork (which at this time is NOT electronic and each form is filled out manually at the time of sale).
DL: “so you are okay with the government suspecting that EVERYONE who purchases cold medicine is a meth manufacturer?”
I don’t think that is what they are doing. Do you believe when they require someone to fill out a form to purchase a handgun that they are assuming that person is a murderer? No? Then why assume they think everyone is making meth with their cold medicine?
Listen – we live in a society where people who abuse the system ruin it for the rest of us, but we all acknowledge that meth is a serious issue and it is damaging many lives. So this is an attempt to prevent people from running around to every drugstore in town and purchasing two or three boxes of cold medicine before combining them all and making a batch of their poison. Yes it is annoying to the person who just wants to buy a box of Sudafed to treat their cold, but until we have a better solution this is one viable option.
It would be nice if we didn’t need to show ID to purchase cold medicine just as it would be nice if we could just buy two guns at the same time without having to run through the same application / registration process for each… but hey – life is full of annoyances, and these are the things we do for the benefit of society even if it means a two minute delay during the checkout process.
DL: “Wouldn’t the solution be making cold medicine prescription only?”
That is the exact opposite of what we should be doing. Do you really want to make a doctor’s appointment and get a prescription for cold medicine? This puts cold medicine out of the reach of anyone who doesn’t have insurance or can’t easily afford their co-pay and/or doesn’t have time to take off work to head into the doctor’s office.
Besides – how would that solve the tracking issue? If you are seriously concerned about “big pharma” knowing you bought cold medicine (a fear that at this point has no basis in reality), aren’t you going to think that someone out there is tracking all of the prescriptions written or entered at pharmacies?
A prescription mandate simply makes it much harder for legitimate sales to occur, and it drives the costs up for the consumer. Horrible, horrible idea.
We have lost our liberty. This is not unlike the constitutionally illegal checkpoints set up to check for drunk drivers. It is for our “safety”. Proven to be not effective as a deterrent.
The Oregon law has yet to show it reduces the spread of meth labs in the state.
Those checkpoints might not be a deterrent OSF, but I’m continually amazed at how many drunk drivers they pick up when they use them.
As far as I’m concerned they can carry on – because one less drunk on the roads is a good thing.
As to them being constitutionally illegal… that is just flat-out wrong. The constitutionality of checkpoints has been confirmed by the SCOTUS as recently as 1990 (check Michigan Dept. of State Police v. Sitz if you want detail), thus they are 100% constitutional. You may not like them, and you may not agree they are legal, but the highest court in the land has ruled they are.
Wow, sometimes this group of responders amazes me. The loss of our liberties once again happening and what do we do? Say:
“it can’t happen”
“it won’t happen”
“why in the world would ALEC care?”
“big pharma is only doing this to help”
“we have a big problem and big pharma is only doing their part”
“law enforcement is at wits end and this is just another tool”
“my employer would never care if I bought cold medicine”
“why would my insurance company care if I bought over the counter”
“what do you mean I can’t keep my job?”
“why did I lose my insurance?”
So to some here it is alright to let big pharma keep track of over the counter meds? Why should your name and address be given to such a connected group so you can have a dry nose?
Again DL, huge failure on your part to link…. Your not OK with the AG tracking your decongestion pills but your OK wih the FED runnning your healthcare. Also, where does it say that any other than pseudo drugs will be tracked?
Your compass is spinning uncontrolled again.
More and more pharms are coming out with meth proof pills and this will be history in 2 years. Our AG is a slimeball but don’t throw the baby out wih the bath water. Keep the meth production in Mexico and out of our neighborhoods.
Even if you couldn’t make meth from cold medicine, do you really think production would be less? Like prohibition, if people want something, they find a way to get it, or make it themselves. Some silly little electronic filing system (that ultimately just tracks sales) isn’t going to reduce meth production.
The fed does not run healthcare, get a grip on reality and turnoff FAUX News Network. Good grief Charlie Brown…
It doesn’t? Would you like to explain the federal medicare and medicade payout rates?
http://www.cms.gov/Outreach-and-Education/Medicare-Learning-Network-MLN/MLNProducts/Downloads/How_to_MPFS_Booklet_ICN901344.pdf
You pay more because the goverment pays less.
Your beloved govement helthcare pays 32 cents on the dollar. Yep, thats gunna raise the living wage for a lot of healthcre providers.
http://medicareplansstcharles.com/working-for-thirty-two-cents-on-the-dollar/
Some people commenting here need to take their heads out of Sean Hannity’s ass. It must be crowded up there.
I see an article listed above referencing 32 cents. Ah yea, a Missouri based health insurance group advocating MEDICAID reimbursements and not actual health insurance. Also note the article is from 2012. Are we having trouble keeping up on current events?
You will also note MEDICAID reimbursements come from a different type of funding source than MEDICARE. Be sure to note these are controlled by very conservative members of congress who wish to destroy the systems for their own benefit and the benefits of their very wealthy supporters.
DL: “Even if you couldn’t make meth from cold medicine, do you really think production would be less? Like prohibition, if people want something, they find a way to get it, or make it themselves.”
I’m not sure I understand your first sentence, but are you saying if they couldn’t make meth without cold medicine, and if cold medicine sales are tracked, that meth production wouldn’t decrease?
Because from what I recall when they started limiting how many pills a single purchaser could buy at any given time, and when some stores started keeping these pills behind a counter where they could actively monitor those purchasing them it actually did result in a decrease in meth production. Maybe that isn’t true – hard to say as I’m not up to speed on how many meth labs have been shut down recently.
To some degree I agree with your second statement, but the thing is when people can’t get one vice, they opt for another related vice. For instance, if a person cannot legally buy alcohol they might start drinking Nyquil or even rubbing alcohol. If they can’t buy lottery tickets or play video lottery, they might log in to a website where they can play poker from a server hosted overseas, or they might find a way to start betting on sports through a bookie who doesn’t care if someone is only 17.
So if someone can’t get meth… makes me wonder what they use as the alternative, and is that alternative better or worse? Maybe with the push to legalize a certain green herb having so much momentum, perhaps people will start migrating towards it instead of a product as addictive and harmful to the body as meth.
GP – you associate tracking the sales of cold medicine as a loss of liberties, so I must ask – what is your opinion on the mandate that people fill out a form to purchase a firearm?
What about the requirement to show identification to purchase tobacco, alcohol, lottery tickets, or even spray paint in some areas?
What about the requirement to register for selective service, show identification when boarding an airline, or the requirements to have a license to cast a line into a body of water even if that body of water is on 100% private land?
Craig you are not even talking the same thing at all. My god are those ludicrous comparisons. You are normally very thoughtful and articulate but on this I have to question your motivations to encourage more tracking of the populace.
To abusively track you and your fellow citizens for very little to no societal benefit is terrible and unconstitutional. Why should we allow our members of legislative bodies vote to tack us for the benefit of the 1% who own and control 90% of our lives just for marketing purposes?
You must be in the data collection department at the place you work. Data managers and collectors like to hoard data for a sense of power it can give them. The only use for this data to be stored on Big Pharma servers is to track and sell more product. It is only a side project of little use for law enforcement. We will hear little stories of some meth-heads in Tennessee or Missouri being caught but it will not give me any comfort to know a multinational consortium now knows when I have the sniffles.
So can you provide us any facts on what the Fed pays for medical service for those on Medicade or Medicade? Does it pay 100%?
BTW payout scales for both are administered by HHS. Only dif is requirments of the particiapnt and medicade is 50% funded by the state, through the HHS department. Run by conservatives???? Got any proof of that either?
Lots of wide spread bullshit theories but very few facts and the constant empty liberal talking points of Fox news but NEVER ANY FACTS Testor.
Anybody can yell slurs but when will you prove a piont? Your an MSNBC doody head. Does that sound like a debate tactic.
AND,
Sean Hannity couldn’t carry my carry my breifcase let alone tell me how to think.
GP: “To abusively track you and your fellow citizens for very little to no societal benefit is terrible and unconstitutional.”
People here like to toss around the term “unconstitutional” an awful lot. I don’t that word means what you think it means.
“Why should we allow our members of legislative bodies vote to tack us for the benefit of the 1% who own and control 90% of our lives just for marketing purposes?”
Maybe we shouldn’t. Just like we should invent conspiracy theories about big evil companies watching our every move when there is no evidence to support such a concept.
“You must be in the data collection department at the place you work. Data managers and collectors like to hoard data for a sense of power it can give them.”
No, but thanks for the ad hominem!
The only use for this data to be stored on Big Pharma servers is to track and sell more product. It is only a side project of little use for law enforcement.”
The “only” use is for big pharma to sell more product? Really? So you have evidence to show how “big pharma” is pushing this idea and how they want to secretly track the American consumer’s purchases of cold medicine? Really?
Yes – this is entirely plausible. The evil drug companies want to track American consumers so they know when you have a cold, then they can predict when you will have your next cold in order to send coupons to your mailbox the week prior.
What’s that? You mean it is impossible to predict when someone gets a cold? Oh. Well then they are probably collecting the data so they can develop an algorithm to figure out when cold season actually beings.
Oh you mean they can figure that out by looking at their own sales figures and they can adjust their production levels to match? Oh… so much for that idea.
So why exactly does “big pharma” want to track my purchases of cold medicine again? And while we are at it, why do they only want to track a very specific type of cold medicine that makes up only a small portion of the overall market? I mean I can buy numerous other types of cold remedies without anyone blinking, yet for some strange reason “big pharma” wants to monitor when I buy only those medications that include one key ingredient?
Oh – I suppose that ingredient is used for some type of mind control experiments right? Does that explain why I have the sudden need to purchase multiple layers of tinfoil to line my stocking cap and why I’ve been seeing black helicopters all day?
Don’t look up dude. Never look up.
“you associate tracking the sales of cold medicine as a loss of liberties”
Not at all. I think anybody in (free enterprise), at anytime, should be able to market any kind of bullshit product they want to me. Don’t care. Where I get upset is when these same free market cheerleaders use the Feds to track my buying habits in the name of ‘drug use’ give me a freaking Nancy Reagan break! While using my tax dollars to support their marketing data to sell more product.
I can’t believe you would sit in front of your computer and be ok with this? The privacy rights are one thing, but using my tax dollars to fund this? That’s the real crime.
What’s it all about? Show. Just like the AG’s “promoting” the Target offer of credit monitoring. It’s hardly better than nothing to tell someone after-the-fact their credit or ID is stolen. “Credit monitoring doesn’t alert you if someone fraudulently uses your payment information,†“Free credit monitoring is like someone running up to you after a car accident and telling you, ‘You just got in a car accident!’â€
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/credit-monitoring-wont-help-target-breach-victims-2014-01-14?dist=tcountdown
If the AG cared about credit card fraud he’d stand up to banksters, insist on mandatory chip and pin cards (like used in the first world nations), as these are proven to minimize fraud.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/12/19/255558139/outdated-magnetic-strips-how-u-s-credit-card-security-lags
Hannity,Levin,Rush are weak imitations of a true American Broadcaster(770 WABC NYC),…RIP Bob Grant Get off my phone YOU FREAK
http://bobgrantonline.com/
I make my own meth.
Blue METH now on sale according to Kelo it is tainted.
Must be Pinkman doing the cook :>
OBG
Again DL, you seem to apply different criteria to different products. Are you ok with tracking the sales of firearms and using tax dollars to handle all that paperwork and overhead while at the same time feeling we should in no way track the sales of pseudoephedrine products?
That aside, you haven’t shown anywhere that the drug industry would have access to the pseudoephedrine sales records, or even that they have any benefit to obtaining these records. Do you honestly believe that “big pharma” could get away with the multiple HIPPA violations that would ensue if they tried to access this data? Do you think nobody would notice, that it wouldn’t create a massive public relations nightmare, or that privacy advocates wouldn’t be marching in DC?
The odd thing is, the link you provided specifically relates to pseudoephedrine products and it blatantly suggests that reporting shall be voluntary. This ‘model legislation’ also has a large focus upon education and treatment for meth addiction… and I honestly fail to realize how spending millions on treatment programs is somehow a gift to ‘big pharma’.
Our own Attorney General even mentions that they will allow waivers for those retailers who don’t have the ability of using the electronic system, so your small town convenience store that sells pseudoephedrine products to the local fisherman won’t even be required to report their sales in this new system.
So instead of floating a conspiracy theory about why the drug companies are trying to capture this information, why don’t you back up and ask yourself what benefit they would receive by doing so? Are you seriously going to suggest they are so concerned with the sales of pseudoephedrine based products that they will jump through hoops to track them while ignoring the hundreds of other OTC rememdies available to the public at any given time?
You do also realize that drug companies compete with one another right? Thus companies like McNeil (the makers of Sudafed) are in direct competition with companies like Perrigo (who manufactures many of the generics you see in stores like Hy-Vee, Target, or Walmart). How exactly would the industry benefit from a list of people who purchase a very specific type of cold medicine from retailers who happen to be linked to an electronic tracking system?
Did you ever step back and think about the fact that the typical consumer of pseudoephedrine buys only one or two packages a year, and that in any given year only around 5% of the US population ever buy it? Did you think about how worthless of a tracking system it would be to “big pharma” when 95% of the nation wouldn’t be reflected and when the sales to a specific individual is only one or two boxes in any given year? We aren’t talking about the sales of shampoo or cereal here – we are talking about a product that most people don’t ever buy, is not used on a daily basis, and one that people only buy when they absolutely need it.
Have you thought of reasonable alternatives to your theory here? Such as the fact that the drug industry realizes if they don’t get this meth problem under control, eventually local governments will get fed up with it and they will either require prescriptions for pseudoephedrine products or they will start banning pseudoephedrine outright? Read up on what Oregon did… or even what Mexico did, and you will see these types of actions are happening.
Obviously either of thes actions would significantly reduce or eliminate all sales of these products, and that would actually have a negative impact upon the financial state of the companies that produce them. So yes it is in the best interests of these companies to ensure people aren’t cooking meth with their pills – no ulterior motive needed.
Have you also thought about how much bad press the drug industry receives due to their products being used to cook up a drug which by any measure is one of the most harmful and destructure illegal substances available today?
As hard as it is for you to believe, it is much more plausible that they simply want to be able to continue to sell their products legally and without prescriptions and they would prefer to not have them used in the production of meth.
Inventing wild conspiracy theories might be more interesting, and I’m sure it is painful to realize there is no hidden motive at work here, but at the end of the day your little tracking idea here simply doesn’t stand up to even the most basic tenets of logic.
another book written to hide or change the subject, thanks Craig.
Actually testor – my post is very much on subject. You don’t have to read it of course… that is up to you.
I’ll concede ad hominem attacks use fewer words, but I’d rather fully explain the point rather than just calling people names or making succint derogatory statements.
Craig, I know you are a smart person and I would never deride you of your knowledge. My other question to tie so many things together is, how do you have so much time to comment at such length?
Well I typically type above 100wpm so that helps. My typical post here takes a couple of minutes – I don’t post on every topic nor do I post every day, and I don’t post anywhere else aside from two or three comments a year on KELO when someone says something that lowers the stupid bar a notch. I also multitask so I’m able to eat a granola bar and formulate a thought at the same time… and most of the time it doesn’t even hurt.
There are also times when I start a thought and return to it later when time permits. You’d be surprised how much you can get done when you don’t drink coffee, smoke, need to use the restroom ten times a day, or have code enforcement knocking on your door.
I could start a spreadsheet tracking my blog posting if you desire – could maybe even add a nifty color-coded graph it you’re a visual guy.
Well I do have (several) accounts at your employer, so in a way, I am paying your wages, so yes, please, charts and graphs and such.
🙂 I’ll get on it.