Under pressure from law-enforcement agencies and state governments, drug companies have begun reformulating popular cold medicines to prevent criminals from converting them into methamphetamine. “This is the direction we’re moving,” said Elizabeth Assey, spokeswoman for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association in Washington, D.C., a lobbying organization for the cold medicine industry.Pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient in a number of over-the-counter drugs such as Sudafed and Sinutab, can be extracted by boiling down cold medicines. Toxic chemicals are then used to turn the substance into meth.More than a dozen states already have restricted access, either by allowing only pharmacies to sell drugs with pseudoephedrine or making retailers sell them from staffed counters. A May report by the Office of National Drug Control Policy found a 50 percent drop in the number of meth labs in Oklahoma and Oregon, two of the first states to enact such restrictions.
