Making pseudoephedrine a prescription-only drug would go a long way toward reducing the number of dangerous meth labs in the state, recovering meth users and drug cooks say.

Improving Oklahoma's electronic pseudoephedrine registry to track sales of the anti-allergy medicine in bordering states would also help, they say.

But people who have lived in the meth culture say that if the state really wanted to do something about the problem, then it would stop locking up addicts and start spending money on the cheaper alternative - drug treatment.

The Tulsa World interviewed 11 recovering methamphetamine users with the help of a variety of local programs, including St. Luke's United Methodist Church and Redemption Ministries, Life Gate Inc., Exodus House, His House Outreach Ministries and Tulsa County Drug Court.

All of the recovering users have been through the court system, most several times. Most say they not only used the drug, but also made it. Almost all of them eventually ended up in prison, some more than once.

Requiring prescriptions: The Oklahoma Legislature is considering a bill that would require a prescription for pseudoephedrine - a key ingredient on most illegal meth labs in the state.

Gayla Payne, 40, will celebrate her fourth year of drug freedom on Jan. 18. She emphatically supports the prescription restriction.

"I think that is the best idea I've ever heard," Payne said.

As long as the allergy drug can be bought easily, the area will struggle with drug lab problems, she said.

Jimmie Cargill, who has been clean from meth for seven years, said a prescription law would particularly reduce the number of small, personal-use meth labs in the state.

Long-term professional drug cooks will find a way to get the ingredients to make meth, but a prescription restriction will effectively inhibit the least experienced, most amateur meth cooks - the people most likely to make a mistake that ends up burning down an apartment building or injuring innocents, he said.

Stephen Landes, who has been to prison twice on drug convictions and has been clean for four years, agreed that a prescription restriction will drive amateurs out of the business.

"They're the ones who are blowing themselves up," he said. "The real cooks know how to do it."

Carla Fain, 33, first used meth when she was 12. She's been clean about 1 1/2 years.

She said restricting access to pseudoephedrine would help those in recovery avoid the temptation.

"Sometimes I still think about it," Fain said. "It'd make my recovery easier."

Rhonda Bear, who started using meth when she was 14 but has been clean for 11 years, had some reservations about the potential success of a prescription restriction.

Locals will probably just drive someplace where they will be able to get pseudoephedrine to make their drugs - Mexico, if necessary, she said.

Meth registry: Some lawmakers have suggested that instead of further restricting access to pseudoephedrine, the state should join a multistate registry that electronically tracks sales of the drug. Oklahoma already has a registry, but its reach ends at the state lines.

The veterans of the drug world say it shouldn't be an either/or proposition. The state should do both because both would be effective.

Bobbie Penberth, 45, first started using meth when she was 15, and she has been clean for two years.

A more effective drug registry would limit the amount of pseudoephedrine coming across state lines, she said.

It is common for drug cooks to send people to border towns looking for more pseudoephedrine, she said.

Payne said that over the years, she made, used and sold meth. She also said it is common for local meth makers to bring in their pseudoephedrine from out of state.

She once had 20 people buying pseudoephedrine for her lab, and they traveled to Missouri, Kansas and Arkansas to get more drugs, she said.

Treating the real problem: The day after the Legislature passes either a prescription law or expands the state's registry, there will be as many meth addicts in Tulsa as there were the day before, the former users said.

Everyone interviewed for the story agreed that real solutions to the meth problem will only come from broadly available, inexpensive treatment.

"I think there needs to be more focus on rehabilitation," said Chris Knudson, who has been clean for eight years and is a facilities manager for Exodus House.

Holding someone in prison at a huge cost makes no sense when the same person can be treated for a fraction of the money, said Bill Bateman, director of Life Gate Inc., who has remained clean for the past eight years.

Others agreed: Treatment should be available and affordable.

"If addiction is a disease, why is it OK to punish it?" Darlene Lorenz said.

Lorenz, who said she once faced 600 years in prison and two life sentences but now is a case manager for Exodus House, said too few treatment alternatives are available.

"Getting people into treatment is darn near impossible," she said.

Unless someone has very, very good insurance or unlimited personal funding, you won't be able to get treatment locally, she said.

Generally those who have been incarcerated suggest that demand for treatment overwhelms supply in the system, especially for men, and that no program will work unless the prisoner was truly committed to changing his life.

Landes said the first time he was involved in a prison treatment program it only helped him build drug contacts to use after he got released.

The second time he went to prison and sought treatment, it was more effective.

In the end, successful treatment has to start with the drug addict taking responsibility for his own life and deciding to behave differently, Knudson said.

"The state can't make the choice for you," she said.

Demand for public treatment of methamphetamine addiction far outpaces supply, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services says.

"On any given day in Oklahoma, there are somewhere between 600 to 900 people voluntarily seeking services who instead must be placed on a waiting list because those services are not available," said Jeffrey Dismukes, spokesman for the agency. "Some of these individuals do eventually make it into treatment. Unfortunately, many do not and end up in jail, in hospitals or dead, or simply sink deeper into their illness and become more ill - and more at-risk to all of the negative consequences that too often follow."

About 78 percent of Oklahoma adults in need of treatment are not receiving appropriate care, Dismukes said

"That's a tragic shame, because treatment works," he said. "If we want to have a lasting effect on the poor societal outcomes that are associated with substance abuse - the arrest rates, incarceration, community violence, family fragmentation, child neglect - then we must address the root problem which is addiction. Access to effective treatment services is a key."