There’s certainly a good case for much of the Patriot Act, but it’s not a case that’s made any stronger by things such as <a href=”http://www.wnyt.com/x7309.xml?ag=x995&sb=x183
“>this: “The key ingredient in many cold medicines is also the main ingredient of meth. To crack down on the drug’s processing, the new version of the Patriot Act requires pharmacies to store medicines containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter, impose limits on how much could be bought at once and force pharmacists to collect signatures and identification from consumers.”
Don’t get me wrong. Taking meth is a very dumb thing to do, but if legislators wish to make it more difficult to buy Sudafed, that’s something which should be included in separate legislation and debated properly. There’s a sense in which the Patriot Act should be seen, and treated, as extraordinary legislation framed in response to an extraordinary threat. Throwing in other provisions to deal with other, more mundane, dangers and you run the danger of diluting that argument, something that can only damage that which the Patriot Act is designed to achieve.
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