https://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle-old/416/methbillstalled.shtml

Yesterday's last-minute maneuvers on Capitol Hill extending the Patriot Act as is for one month means a methamphetamine bill inserted into the reauthorized version of the act is now on hold. The Combat Meth Epidemic Act, sponsored by drug-fightin' Rep. Mark Souder (R-IN), would impose federal restrictions on the purchase of popular cold remedies and other medications containing pseudoephedrine, a chemical used in home meth cooking. It would also create new prison sentences of up to 20 years for people who sold or cooked meth in a home where children reside (even if they are not present at the time the offense occurred).

Souder and House Judiciary Committee Chair James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) had folded the meth bill into the Patriot Act as a means of avoiding a House floor vote and getting the measure passed in a hurry. As it turns out, that was a mistake. The Patriot Act renewal has been stalled as Democrats and Republicans fight over the degree to which Americans must sacrifice civil liberties and traditional protections from government spying in the unending "war on terror."

The five-week extension agreed to yesterday means the Patriot Act continues in effect as is, without the modifications proposed for "Patriot II." And, according to Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI), the vote to extend the Patriot Act likely means it's back to the drawing board for the meth bill and its authors. "One thing is clear," Feingold wrote in an e-mail message Wednesday night, "what happened in the Senate over the past few weeks shows that this conference report is dead."

The sponsors of the meth bill hoped to sneak it into law by attaching it to what they thought would be a popular anti-terrorism bill. They got a rude lesson in the vagaries of the political process in a Congress poisoned and polarized around fundamental issues of national security and individual liberty. For the rest of us, it means there are at least a few more weeks when we can use Sudafed and similar products to deal with our sniffles without a federal case being made of it.

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