I 
108TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. R. 3789
To eliminate the safe-harbor exception for certain packaged pseudoephedrine 
products used in the manufacture of methamphetamine. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
FEBRUARY 10, 2004
Mr. PETERSON of Minnesota introduced the following bill; which was referred 
to the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and in addition to the Com-
mittee on the Judiciary, for a period to be subsequently determined by 
the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions as fall with-
in the jurisdiction of the committee concerned 
A BILL 
To eliminate the safe-harbor exception for certain packaged 
pseudoephedrine products used in the manufacture of 
methamphetamine.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Methamphetamine 
Blister Pack Loophole Elimination Act of 2004’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds that—
(1) methamphetamine is a dangerous drug dis-
tributed throughout the United States; 
(2) the manufacture, distribution, and use of 
methamphetamine results in increased crime, dam-
age to the environment, hazardous waste that en-
dangers the public, expensive cleanup costs often 
borne by Federal, State, and local government agen-
cies, and broken families; 
(3) Congress has acted many times to limit the 
availability of chemicals and equipment used in the 
manufacturing of methamphetamine; 
(4) pseudoephedrine is 1 of the basic precursor 
chemicals used in the manufacture of methamphet-
amine; 
(5) the United States Drug Enforcement Ad-
ministration has indicated that methamphetamine 
manufacturers often obtain pseudoephedrine from 
retail and wholesale distributors, in both bottles and 
‘‘blister packs’’, and that the use of pseudoephedrine 
tablets in blister packs is pervasive in the illicit pro-
duction of methamphetamine in both small and large 
clandestine methamphetamine laboratories; 
(6) while current law establishes a retail sales 
limit of 9 grams for most pseudoephedrine products, 
including common cold medicine, there is no such
limit on the sale of blister-packed pseudoephedrine 
products; 
(7) the 9 gram limit on bottled pseudoephedrine 
allows an individual to purchase approximately 366 
thirty-milligram tablets at 1 time, which is more 
than enough for a typical consumer in 1 transaction; 
(8) the United States Drug Enforcement Ad-
ministration recommended in March 2002 that retail 
distribution of pseudoephedrine tablets in blister 
packages should not be exempt from the 9 gram re-
tail sales limit; and 
(9) in recommending legislation to correct the 
current disparity in the law between bottled and blis-
ter-packed pseudoephedrine tablets, the United 
States Drug Enforcement Administration stated 
that ‘‘The removal of this difference would signifi-
cantly prevent illicit access to this methamphetamine 
precursor and would be easier for both the govern-
ment and the industry to monitor and would in-
crease compliance by retailers’’. 
SEC. 3. ELIMINATION OF BLISTER PACK EXEMPTION. 
(a) 
REGULATED
TRANSACTION.—Section 
102(39)(A)(iv)(I)(aa) of the Controlled Substances Act 
(21 U.S.C. 802(39)(A)(iv)(I)(aa)) is amended by striking 
‘‘(except that’’ and all that follows through ‘‘1996)’’.
(b) RULE OF LAW.—To the extent that there exists 
a conflict between the amendment made by subsection (a) 
and section 401(d) of the Comprehensive Methamphet-
amine Control Act of 1996 (21 U.S.C. 802 note), the 
amendment shall control.
Æ