Congressman Tom Latham’s sponsoring a bill in the U.S. House that would impose on the nation Iowa’s tough new restrictions on the sale of a meth-making ingredient. Latham’s named the bill for a young Iowa woman who fell victim to meth. Latham says Angie Fatino of Des Moines became addicted to meth and committed suicide. “Angie’s Law” would simply impose, nationwide, the same kind of purchasing restrictions on over-the-counter medications with pseudoephedrine that are now in force in Iowa. The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee has endorsed a meth bill that awaits action in the full Senate, but Latham says it’s not tough enough.Iowa’s law only allows individuals to buy seven-and-a-half grams of pseudoephedrine per month. Latham says the Senate bill allows nine grams. Under Iowa’s new law, individuals must show an I.D. and sign their name to buy products that contain pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient in meth. But state officials say they know of no arrests in Iowa, yet, of people who’ve bought too much pseudoephedrine in a single month. Marshall County Sheriff Ted Kamatchus, though, predicts it will happen. “The bottom line on it is I’m sure somewhere down the road we’ll run across some of those individuals and that’s what the law’s there for,” he says. Congressman Latham was recently named co-chair of a congressional task force on methamphetamine in rural America. He’s also part of a Drug-Free America task force assembled by the Speaker of the U.S. House.
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