Mississippi, California take lead in battling meth epidemic.

• Position: On First Reading

The manufacture and use of methamphetamine in Mississippi may have surprised law enforcement when it skyrocketed in the 1990s, but lawmakers have taken crucial steps to fight the drug problem.

The state now outlaws possession of two or more chemicals (precursors) needed to make meth. Before, even if a suspect had a car trunk full of meth ingredients and a recipe on the passenger seat, authorities say they couldn't make an arrest.

California was the first state to pass tough precursor laws--and they are working.

Federal prosecutors obtained a first-in-the-nation judgment in April against a California convenience store owner who bought large amounts of decongestants that could be used to make methamphetamine.

Investigators tracked store deliveries and inventory for six months, showing he purchased 544,000 nasal decongestant tablets containing pseudoephedrine, which is used to make meth. That was 53 times what a convenience store would be expected to buy, prosecutors said.

The government successfully sued the business owner, settling the case for $50,000 and a permanent, lifetime injunction against the sale of the decongestants or any other ingredients that could be...