Waging an imprecise war on illegal drugs in Union.
Flu season — or at least the traditional flu season — still is a month away. But four Jefferson County schools are taking an unexpected holiday this week, closed by outbreaks of swine flu.
That’s left doctors and public health officials there scrambling to find supplies of the recently released swine flu vaccine and to cope with an unseasonal surge in flu cases.
Meanwhile in neighboring Franklin County, city leaders in Union voted to make cold medicines containing pseudoephedrine available only with a doctor’s prescription.
In a county that already has high rates of medical problems like heart disease, stroke and smoking-related conditions, that’s going to pose extra hardships.
But Union Mayor Mike Livengood said it’s all for the greater good. “If this can save the life of even one child, it’s worth doing, even if it’s going to be a possible inconvenience to some,” he explained.
The new cold war is designed to keep pseudoephedrine from being used to make illegal methamphetamine.
A national survey released last month found that the number of meth users and the number who first tried the drug has fallen by about 60 percent.
It’s certainly appropriate for political leaders to protect kids. Officials in Union deserve credit for good intentions.
But without minimizing the consequences of illegal drug use, other risks pose a greater threat to Franklin County children.
One of the biggest is tobacco. It still will be available in drugstores after all the pseudoephedrine is pulled from the shelves.
About one of every five deaths in Missouri — more than 9,500 every year — is tobacco-related.
Roughly 22 percent of Franklin County residents are smokers. Another 7 percent use smokeless tobacco.
In Franklin County, young people between ages 15 and 19 have a higher than average death rate from accidental injuries and car crashes.
Across Missouri, the number of deaths caused by all illegal drug use pales in comparison to the numbers caused by alcohol and tobacco.
We have argued before that requiring a doctor’s prescription to buy cold medicine is unreasonable and expensive.
It will put an additional strain on an overburdened health system and pose hardships for many poor and uninsured patients. Those problems will be magnified by swine flu outbreaks.
Banning cold medicines makes headlines. The real preventable problems faced by kids in Franklin County — and Missouri, and all across the country — are a lot more prosaic.
In the last week, for example, 20 American kids have died of swine flu, bringing the death toll so far this year to 75. Yet only about 40 percent of parents say they will immunize their kids. Doing so would save more lives than banning cold medicines.
The percentage of teenage smokers in Missouri is well above the national average.
Thousands of Missouri kids are uninsured and have limited access to health care.
Death rates for injuries and accidents are unacceptably high.
If we’re really serious about protecting kids, those are all excellent places to start.
Have we forgotten there are ways to combat a cold other than with pseudoephedrine?
So…because the Post-Dispatch can think of problems that may be greater in Franklin County, officials here should ignore all other issues until the “anointed” ones are solved? If we can effectively deal with methamphetamine (this system has been proven by the State of Oregon), why not do it? I would also point out that these ordinances in Washington and Union have not been costly. Most patients have been able to call their doctors, who have already seen their patients for sinus/allergy issues, and the docs call in a prescription without a doctors visit. A little investigation and research never hurt anything…
I commented on this subject yesterday. There are other ways to relieve allergies and colds. Trying to make a parallel between meth and tobacco is
pretty weak. I agree that tobacco takes many lives, but meth makes people do far worse things. I’ve personally seen people steal,become violent, neglect children, wreck cars, and other assorted tragedies. Has the writer of this story ever seen someone who injects meth, it’s scary stuff. Making sure this crap is as hard to make as possible is worth keeping some cold medicines behind the counter. I understand your trying to make us aware about other health problems, but meth is a little bit more hardcore than cigarettes. It’s like compairing pot to heroin.
Come on P-D!
Don’t confuse the local hillbillies with facts and logic.
Just pass a lazy law so now I’ve got to waste a day going to see my doctor and turning a $5 package of cold medicine into a half a day ordeal and costing me a $50 co-pay.
What’s not to like about that backwards logic???
Come to think of it. Why stop at cold medicine???
Since statistically Liquor and Tobacco cause 10 times the deaths that Meth ever will lets make it a law you have to have a Rx for Those too!!!
I wonder how that would go over in Hoosier-ville?
I can already imagine the riots outside of all of the Dirt-Cheaps when that law gets enacted.
What with all the heroin deaths in Washington, don’t these guys have anything better to do?
http://dangerousintersection.org/2006/08/13/afghanistan-democracy-is-drowning-in-illegal-drugs/