By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis – U.S. Senator Jim Talent is co-sponsoring what he says is the most comprehensive anti-methamphetamine bill ever drafted by Congress.
The Missouri Republican was in Clayton Friday to talk about the bill, which would regulate the sale of pseudoephedrine nationwide.
It would also provide more funding to train emergency responders to track down and clean up secret meth labs. Talent said the bill is mostly focused on stopping labs in residential areas.
"It would be a huge advance if we could just stop these labs that are in the neighborhoods," Talent said. "The fire protection problem is substantially reduced. The toxic problem to the kids is substantially reduced. This is not the be all and the end all, but it's going to deal with a big part of the problem."
Last year, Missouri led the nation in the number of meth labs seizures.