The significant drop in sales of cold and allergy medication in the three months after the city passed the prescription ordinance is early evidence that the law is working.

It's impossible to say how much of that decrease would have been used to cook meth but it does corroborate what local law enforcement officers had long suspected - that meth cookers from outside the area were coming to Washington to "smurf" the pills.

Smurfing is the practice of buying pills at multiple pharmacies in order to get around state and federal laws that limit the amounts people may legally purchase.

In the 90 days prior to July 7 - when Washington's anti-meth ordinance took effect - five pharmacies in the city sold 4,346 boxes of medicine containing pseudophedrine.

In the 90 days after the law, sales dropped to 310 boxes, an almost 93 percent decrease. That was expected. But what was telling is that there wasn't a spike in sales in pharmacies in nearby towns. In fact, sales in Union, Owensville and Sullivan actually decreased.

That is the point that police say validates their hunches that meth cookers had targeted Washington as a destination to acquire pseudophedrine. Critics predicted that meth cookers and people who legitimately used the cold and allergy medicines would simply go elsewhere to purchase the drugs. That doesn't appear to be the case at least according to these initial figures which are collected by pharmacies pursuant to federal law.

The Washington city council took a stand in passing the anti-meth ordinance. No other city had gone so far as to require a prescriptions for medicines containing pseudophedrine although one state, Oregon, passed a similar law. Now Union has passed an ordinance and it appears other cities and some counties are poised to follow suit.

It comes down to whether you believe there is a meth crisis in our community or not. If you believe there is, the next question is what are we going to do about it? Washington and Union chose to be proactive after state lawmakers failed to take action.

Washington officials also took some heat from critics who raised government intrusion arguments and some more practical objections that the new law would hit the consumer in the pocket book because consumers would now have to pay for a doctor's visit in order to obtain the prescription. That has not been the case, for the most part, according to police who report that most doctors are handling the prescriptions over the phone. That's good news.

When you get right down to it the anti-meth laws haven't adversely impacted that many people in this area. Sure, some who legitimately used the medicines for cold and allergies have been inconvenienced. But some of the objections to the law have been blown out of proportion. But the initial data demonstrates that it is achieving its desired result.

It should be pointed out that Washington and Union's anti-meth law isn't going to end meth use in this area. As long as there is a demand for the drug there will be suppliers. But cutting off the availability of the key component of the drug is an important step in reducing the number of meth labs here.

With those labs comes environmental damage, other crimes, wrecked families, the diversion of law enforcement resources and the expense of cleaning up lab sites.
It's a step that needs to be implemented state-wide to have the most impact.

We hope our state lawmakers are listening.