Now, after flourishing under the radar screen of many people and politicians, meth has been placed in the spotlight in recent weeks and now is being addressed by Congress.

The new offensive in the war against methamphetamine is happening down at your neighborhood drug store.

Believe it or not, the cold medicines that we buy to battle coughs, runny noses and allergies are at the heart of the war against meth. Unlike its intended use, medication such as Sudafed is being used as a key ingredient to manufacture methamphetamine.

Cold medications such as Sudafed contain pseudoephedrine, a main ingredient in meth. Meth makers buy the common cold medicines as a relatively cheap and easy way to make the drug, which many in law enforcement, including Butte County Sheriff Perry Reniff, see as the No. 1 enemy in the country's war on drugs.

Methamphetamine can be cooked from easily available chemicals, such as cold medications, in kitchens, motel rooms and in orchards. A recent news report by The Associated Press stated that this year alone, 850 labs have been seized in California.

At those meth lab sites, which require expensive hazardous material teams to clean up, narcotics officers typically will find bottles of cold medicine dispersed throughout, with the number of bottles numbering in the dozens and even hundreds.

The meth cookers use the cold medication in their brew, boiling it down to the base that gives meth its crystal kick, a combination of pseudoephedrine and other chemicals.

California already limits the number of boxes of cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine that a person can buy. California Sen. Dianne Feinstein earlier this month announced federal legislation that would force pharmacies and stores to place non-prescription cold medicine behind the pharmacy counter. A photo ID would be required to purchase the medicine and the amount to be purchased would restricted, as well.

Her bill, however, comes weeks after many large retailers, including Target and Wal-Mart, announced they would voluntarily place cold medicines behind the pharmacy counter. We applaud the action of both stores.

We are disappointed that the makers of these medicines are fighting the proposal. The fact that the drug industry doesn't acknowledge the connection from the manufacturing of methamphetamine through the sale of its own cold medicines to meth cookers is not ignorance, but rather selectively sticking one's head in the sand when profits dictate.

We hope Feinstein's legislation is passed by Congress and we hope that the voluntary actions of Target and Wal-Mart to restrict the sale of cold medications are copied. This problem has been ignored for too long.