Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005


The Combat Methamphetamine Epidemic Act of 2005 is federal legislation enacted in the United States on March 9, 2006, to regulate, among other things, retail over-the-counter sales of following products because of their use in the manufacture of illegal drugs:
Retail provisions of the CMEA include daily sales limits and 30-day purchase limits, placement of product out of direct customer access, sales logbooks, customer ID verification, employee training, and self-certification of regulated sellers. The CMEA is found as Title VII of the USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005. The last provisions of the law took effect on 30 September 2006.

Justification

Ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, and phenylpropanolamine are precursor chemicals used in the illicit manufacture of methamphetamine or amphetamine. They are also common ingredients used to make cough, cold, and allergy products. It was argued that the CMEA would curtail the clandestine production of methamphetamine. The U.S. Department of Justice claimed that states that had enacted similar or more restrictive retail regulations saw dramatic drops in the numbers of small clandestine labs.

Provisions

"The CMEA requires record-keeping and identification of all sales and reports to law enforcement of any 'suspicious' transactions. Purchasers are limited to '3.6 grams of pseudoephedrine base' per day and 9 grams per month. "
The statute also includes the following requirements for merchants who sell these products:
In September 2006, Tim Naveau was arrested and charged with a Class-B misdemeanor for purchasing Claritin-D. Naveau takes one tablet of Claritin D each day to combat allergies, and he "had stocked up on the allergy medication because his teenage son, who was also an allergy sufferer, needed several packages because he was headed off to a church camp." Minors are not permitted to purchase pseudoephedrine under the law. Naveau had gone over the legal limit for pseudoephedrine when he purchased extra Claritin-D to give to his son before he attended church camp.