When Drug Users Learn to Point and Click, We'll Really Have a Problem

Since July, Virginia law has prohibited retailers from selling more than two packages of cold medicine to each customer. Presently, Fairfax County is not full of eyebrow-plucking meth addicts. Connection? The police seem to think so:

Enforcement of the ephedrine and pseudoephedrine law is a preventative measure, Fairfax County Police spokesman Rich Henry says.

"Right now in Fairfax County, we don't have a major problem with methamphetamine. And we're trying to make sure that stays that way," Henry says.

Henry attributes the low number of methamphetamine-related arrests in the county to police enforcement of the law.

A recent sting of 21 stores uncovered six stores that were not complying with the law, Henry says.

Hey, here's a wild idea for a reporter covering Fairfax's miraculous lack of meth mouth: Ask what things were like before police were raiding drugstores. It seems unlikely that the newly chastened EZ Stop n' Go Food Mart stands between the County and its supposed thirst for meth. In any case, armed anti-Sudafed warriors seem to be unfamiliar with that consumer paradise we call the Internet.

Jacob Sullum weighed in on the Sudafed situation last November.