What are the meth laws in Missouri?
You all know about the meth problems in Missouri. When I was elected one of the things I
campaigned on was that we need to stop meth. So, we borrowed our law from Oklahoma's law:
banning most ingredients that make meth, like pseudophedrine. Now we put it behind the
counter as a controlled substance. Before this law was passed, you could go into Walgreens or
Wal-mart and buy as much sudophedrine as you wanted, so there was an unlimited supply of
things that you could use to make meth. Now you have to sign for these drugs if you want to
make meth. It's 3.6 grams per month that you can buy of pseudophederine. You have to sign for
it with the pharmacist, and that reduced people buying it. We hope that it will go down more.
Our meth busts are down 40% from what they were two years ago, and that's a good turn. Did
you know that St. Francios County was the fourth worst county in the state from meth
production? I mean and when you look at our states, number two in the nation! Our county was
in the top twenty counties in the nation, and that's pretty scary. We're proud of the bill we
passed, and we've seen results.

How long have they been in effect?
We passed it in 2005, and when you pass a bill it becomes a law on August 28th of that same
year. August 28th is when it took affect. I don't know if you knew this, but former U.S. Senator
Jim Talent sponsored a bill that mirrored what we did in the state. Which made it a federal
law. Oklahoma first passed their law banning meth products. Do you know where all the meth
users went? They came to surrounding states, one of which was Missouri, so we passed a meth
law. Now where are they going to go? The other states that don't have any meth laws
controlling how much pseudophedrine. Our federal law has been in affect for about a year.

How do you think they are working?
They're doing what we wanted them to do. Now you see meth labs and productions are down a
lot. I think that they are working and getting the results we wanted. But we can do more, like
donating to the police dept. and other agencies. See what happens, people make meth in their
house or in the country, making it very hard to find. We need to help expand the resources, but
the laws have clearly done what we wanted them to.

Do you think there will be more laws later on down the road?
We want to figure out what needs to be done. What you need to look at is to eliminate the
production and use of meth in our state and country, but it will take a long time to do. Do we
write these people off and put them in jail, or do we let them continue doing this deadly drug?
I think that we can give people second chances, and last year we brought in a drug court in our
county, and I love it. What it does is it takes non-violent offenders who, if you put them in
prison, they are liable to get worse as a drug offender. It's difficult to get a job after prison.
Basically what we need to do is put them in rehab and other things to help them to get back
into the workforce. We need to work on the job side of it and the rehab side of laws to try to
help these people that need help.

When kids are taken away from their parents, are they ever returned?
If the parents are doing meth it's not safe for the child, but if the parent has successfully gone
through rehabilitation and have proven to the court they are meth-free, it is a possibility that
they might get back together. I believe in second chances and I believe our country was
founded on second chances. I really don't want to put a child in danger but if the parent has
proven that they are done with that part of that life then they should be with their parent.

What does the legislature do about meth?
Just like any bill, an issue is brought to your attention and it is said, "This is a problem." Now
the problem that came to us was one of our members said, "Hey meth is a serious problem in
our counties and state, we don't know how to fix it but we need to try." You (legislatures) need
to talk to experts in those fields, like doctors and other people, then it's easy to do what other
states have done. Technically, you don't have to reinvent the wheel, just borrow the ideas of
what other states have done, and what they have done has worked. Oklahoma passed their law
and meth went to 78%, so we took their law and help from our local experts and we asked for
our bill to be drafted in a bill format in our capital. Then we vote for it and if it passes there, it
goes to the House Floor, then it goes to the Senate Committee, then the Senate Floor. When
it's passed by all of those then it goes to the Governor's desk. Our Founding Fathers set it up
that way, so that every law should be extremely debated. There may be three or four thousand
bills that go through the house but only about four hundred will make it into being a bill.

What if a law is not passed but some people think it's a good law. What will happen?
What will happen is that they will file it again next year. I've got a bill that deals with pay
increases. The first year I tried, it didn't make it. Then the next year it didn't again. Then we
tweak it again. The reason it usually dies is because people don't think part of the bill was good
and like in life if you don't make it, try again.

Did this go through?
It's the third year and if it doesn't, I'm going to tweak it again until it makes it as a bill because I
believe it's an important law that we need in Missouri

Is there anything we can do to prevent meth?
I think you can, by handling your stress in front of your other peers. Later on in life you might
be with someone who does the wrong thing. What you should do is tell them, "Hey, you're
doing the wrong thing." What you can do is to pressure people to NOT do these wrong things
and tell them that alcohol and nicotine are bad.

Did the meth law get passed the first time?
Yes, I think that everyone thought it was an important issue that needed to be addressed. If you
have a bill like an anti-meth bill... we showed them how big a problem it was, affecting
families and children and the environment; it was a no-brainer.

Do most bills like that go through?
Yes. Let me give you an example. If you look at Jessica Lunsford's law: she was a young girl who
lived in Florida and was raped and murdered. She lived in a neighborhood and she didn't know
this convicted sex offender lived there. It was brought through my attention that Missouri had
some of the weakest laws against sex offenders and things like that, so I then filed a bill to
crack down on sex offenders. It was one of those bills that everyone agreed on and it passed.

Have you had very many bills that have passed?
First, you file your own bill and it goes through that process. Second, if you file your bill and
then you attach your bill as an amendment onto another bill that is getting ready to pass.
There's only 400 bills out of about 4000 that get passed.

With the laws like the meth laws and sex-offenders, when they are sent to prison or death
row, what happens in that situation?
I think that's a good question; it's something that needs to be discussed. My brother is a public
defender and he brought this issue to me and he brought to me that maybe our death row
situation doesn't always work the best way. I always thought if you were on death row, there
was nothing you can do about it but now with other tests and things like that you can find out if
the person really is guilty or not. That's scary; if you put someone on death row for something
they didn't do. Another thing to think about is the pro-life issue. I consider myself pro-life and
there's an argument that if you're pro-life you shouldn't support death row. It's the man above
that makes that decision if they should live or die. I think the worst thing we can do is put an
innocent man to death.

So you say we won't totally have meth out of our state?
We need to keep working on our goal, like saying that we want to keep getting rid of drug use.