My latest Bluegrass Beacon column heading out to newspapers Thursday will once again take on misleading claims offered by big-government politicians who want to require all law-abiding citizens to obtain a prescription in order to purchase products containing the decongestant pseudoephedrine (PSE).

By restricting PSE, which is a necessary ingredient to make methamphetamine, proponents claim they can effectively address this dangerous drug’s scourge in Kentucky.

However, 615 words is too few to cover all of the pseudo claims about Kentucky’s pseudoephedrine policy. So we will take on some of the claims one-by-one in upcoming weeks, beginning with this one:

Wrong: Rep. Brent Yonts’ common-sense proposal to improve Kentucky’s current tracking system in order to punish criminals and not law-abiding citizens will not the practice of “smurfing,” a practice in which meth cooks pay others to purchase pseudoephedrine for them.

Right: To combat surfing, Yonts’ bill would: (1) Limit the amount of pseudoephedrine that can be purchased without a prescription to 7.5 grams a month, and 60 grams – or about 20 boxes – a year. (2) Create a meth offender registry block list, which would block sales to any person convicted of a meth-related crime, including “smurfing.”