Thomas Mott Osborne: “this evening, legislation to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act came before the House, and something attached to the PATRIOT…”

“this evening, legislation to reauthorize the PATRIOT Act came before the House, and something attached to the PATRIOT Act that sometimes has escaped notice is the fact that legislation to address the methamphetamine epidemic spreading across the country was included. This legislation provides a uniform, national standard for the regulation of precursor chemicals which are necessary to the manufacture of methamphetamine. Currently, we have a hodgepodge of State laws and regulations. This provides a national standard that is uniform and this is very important. Key provisions are as follows: limits the amount of pseudoephedrine sales, and pseudoephedrine has to be an ingredient to make methamphetamine. They cannot do it without it. It requires that pseudoephedrine and other precursor chemicals are sold from behind the counter. In many cases now you can go in and pick them up. Requires purchasers of these chemicals to show I.D. and sign a logbook. Restricts Internet sales of precursor chemicals. So if we look at this, Mr. Speaker, we see that in 1990 there were only two States that had 20 clandestine meth labs each. California had 20 or more and Texas had 20 or more. Then you see the spread of this epidemic. By 2004, practically the whole Nation was blanketed by small meth labs. The only exception would be in the New England States in the Northeast, and that is rapidly being taken over as well. So this is something that is spreading rapidly.…”