According to today's Washington Post, "Fewer Methamphetamines Labs Found" in southwest Virginia. According to the article, the "number of laboratories suspected of making [methamphetamines]" has fallen sharply. Between October 2005 and January 2006, just 6 labs in SWVA were seized, down from 28 during the same period a year earlier. What caused this sharp drop?Authorities give much of the credit for the decline to Gov. Mark R. Warner's executive order in October [2005] that put products with ephedrine and pseudophedrine - decongestants used in the manufacture of meth - behind the counter in drugstores.
And guess who opposed Gov. Warner's executive order? Yes, our old friend Jerry W. Kilgore, Republican candidate for governor, who worried - is this a parody of pro-business Republican philosophy or what? - that the order could be a burden on retailers. At the time, Kilgore's press secretary Tim Murtaugh commented, "Our concern continues to be the impact this could have on rural retailers. If you have a blanket policy, it will have a different impact on CVS in Alexandria than it will on a tiny store in a rural county." Murtaugh added that Warner's executive order was "politics in its most embarrassing form."
Yeah, it sure is embarrassing to have a governor - like Democrats Mark Warner and Tim Kaine - who cares more about "the people" (you know, the ones Republican Jerry Kilgore said he trusted - "always have, always will") than about the sources of ingredients for methamphetamines. Priorities, priorities...