Oct 26, 2005 2 min read

It’s heartening to know, as the press release proclaims, “Kasunic and Rendell team up on meth legislation.” It conjures up images of a veritable drug-fighting duo, a tights-wearing Batman and Robin ready to burst in and catch any bad guys cooking up illegal methamphetamine. Of course, the legislation proposed by Kasunic in April and now modified – to meet Big Ed’s concerns and to comply with federal regulations – would limit your ability to buy cold remedy medications that contain the ingredients used to make the drug. It would limit sale of those commonly available items to behind-the-counter pharmacies, which would also have to keep a log of those transactions. In addition to providing an inconvenience to many regular customers who don’t have even a remote interest in distilling some homegrown “speed,” want to bet that the price would rise too?

And as part of Kasunic’s “lock ’em up” mentality, couriers of meth-making ingredients would face up to 10 years in jail and a $25,000 fine. This comes at a time when the $1.345-billion-a-year state prison system already has 42,000 inmates, 1,000 more than last year, and the head of corrections is casting about for ways to divert many of them into more appropriate and effective drug treatment programs.

If Kasunic and Rendell want to cling to the idea of throwing more people in jail for drug-related offenses, they should also team up to absolve counties of the budget-crippling financial responsibility that accompanies that effort.