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State Representative Joe Atkins
100 Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
651-296-4192
For more information contact: Ben Schweigert 651-296-5809
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ATKINS AMENDMENT MAKES MINNESOTA METH BILL NATION’S TOUGHEST
With the addition of language offered by State Representative Joe Atkins, the Minnesota House of Representatives recently adopted the country’s toughest methamphetamine bill. The bill restricts access to pseudoephedrine, the principal ingredient necessary to make methamphetamine.
“Meth addicts and meth labs have become a huge danger throughout Minnesota," said Atkins. “Across the nation, states are adopting laws to deal with this growing and devastating problem.”
Methamphetamine is easy to make, highly addictive and extremely dangerous. The main ingredient in the drug comes from cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine, such as Sudafed, which can be purchased at almost any store. The Minnesota House bill requires products containing pseudoephedrine in tablet form to be placed behind a pharmacy counter. It also requires the logging of the purchaser’s name. This has been found to greatly reduce the use of meth in other states.
The Atkins Amendment on the House floor proposed to apply the bill to gel caps and liquids, if it is found that meth makers turn to those forms of pseudoephedrine when tablets become unavailable on store shelves. The amendment passed on a nearly unanimous vote and became part of the bill.
Until Atkins looked into the issue himself, it was widely believed by Minnesota lawmakers that meth could not be made from gel caps and liquid containing pseudoephedrine. Atkins became aware of the issue when he examined what other states had done. “The Arkansas meth law just went into effect three weeks ago and within a week it was reported that meth could be made from gel caps and liquids,” said Atkins. “Without accounting for gel caps and liquids, our new meth law was in danger of being obsolete before it even went into effect.”
Atkins learned from Arkansas crime lab officials that making meth from gel caps requires a few extra steps and takes as little as an hour. “Taking away tablets from meth makers without taking away gel caps and liquids is like taking away guns from a serial killer but letting him keep knives. It isn’t effective,” Atkins said on the House floor.
Atkins was lauded on the House floor by his fellow legislators, including the bill’s author, for his efforts.
Last month, the Hazelden Foundation released its Drug Abuse Trends Report for the Twin Cities. It says that admissions for meth treatment amounted to an unprecedented 9.5 percent of all drug treatment in the first half of 2004. That’s up two percent from 2003 and triple the number of 1998.
Hazelden’s Director of Research Communications, Carol Falkowski says meth addicts become paranoid and see and hear things that aren’t there. “For that reason they pose a unique threat to the public safety of the people around them. They're responding to things that aren't really there and it makes them a hazard to be around. That's why just a few meth addicts within a particular community can have a very strong effect. You notice them.”
More information regarding the meth bill and Representative Atkins’s amendment is available at Atkins’s website, www.joeatkins.com.
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