Minor Thoughts from me to you

Mississippi governor Haley Barbour signed a bill last month requiring all patients to get a prescription before buying any medicine containing pseudoephedrine.

This is insane. This is seriously insane. This law -- and Federal laws requiring Sudafed to be kept behind the pharmacist's counter -- have done nothing to curtail access to meth. These laws have accomplished one thing and one thing only: meth production has been shifted from small labs to super high tech Mexican labs. Meth is still plentiful in the United States. But it's now fueling the growth of Mexican drug gangs and Mexican smugglers. If anything, the status quo ante was better in that it wasn't creating sophisticated cross-border smuggling operations.

Now, every Mississippi resident suffering from allergies, sinuses, or colds will have to go to a doctor before they're able to get any effective relief. Doctors' offices and emergency rooms will become more crowded and the entire state population will be vastly inconvenienced. All for a law that will have no practical effect whatsoever.

For the record, Governor Barbour will not be getting my vote, should he decide to run in the Republican presidential primaries.