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Cops still struggle to fight meth
By Christine Byers
christine.byers@lee.net
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ST. LOUIS — The fire hoses had been rolled up. The 11-year-old burn victim was at the hospital. And Jefferson County’s Sgt. Gary Higginbotham was left shaking his head as he surveyed the scene of the methamphetamine lab explosion.

He knew that, in other states, authorities could have quickly caught the Festus, Mo., homeowners’ illegal purchases of a key ingredient to make meth.

But not here not in the heart of America’s fight against meth labs.

Missouri has long led the nation in meth lab busts. Illinois hasn’t been far behind. Yet neither state has adopted stricter laws for obtaining meth’s key ingredient, pseudoephedrine. Those tougher approaches are credited with helping some states, like Oklahoma and Kentucky, record big declines of meth labs.

In Missouri and Illinois, addicts only have to sign paper logs that often are too cumbersome for police to check. Missouri is set to strengthen oversight, but police worry meth cooks will cross state lines to buy supplies.

“I shudder to think what people are going to say 20 years from now as to why we didn’t eliminate this problem,” said Missouri Rep. Jeff Roorda, who is pushing for a tougher law.

Awaiting reform, Higginbotham and other Jefferson County officers have struggled to keep up with a list of who exceeds the purchase limit.

Higginbotham led the county’s drug unit when Congress passed a 2005 law limiting pseudoephedrine purchases to 9 grams every 30 days. That’s roughly two 15-dose boxes of 24-hour Claritin D or six 24-dose boxes of Sudafed.

Missouri and Illinois then passed laws authorizing only licensed pharmacies to sell the products. Anyone buying pseudoephedrine products had to show ID and sign paper logs kept at pharmacy counters.

Lists sit unchecked

Elected leaders from both states touted the laws as the panacea to the mom-and-pop meth labs, and the laws did help. From 2005 through 2007, Missouri’s lab totals were nearly halved. Illinois’ dropped about 60 percent.

But Missouri still ended 2007 with 1,189 busts — more than double any other state’s. Illinois was fourth with 342.

Higginbotham said the new laws initially confused pill shoppers, commonly called “smurfers,” who buy for meth makers. But they’ve adapted.

“They just go from store to store to buy pills,” he said.

Jefferson County found 218 meth labs last year, the most in Missouri and more than 27 states combined.

“For anyone who doesn’t believe meth is still around, saddle up and ride with us,” said Cpl. David Curtis, who succeeded Higginbotham as head of the drug unit. “We’ll show you.”

Sheriff Oliver “Glenn” Boyer doesn’t think the meth problem is worse there, just that his department focuses on finding labs. But even with eight detectives assigned to hunt meth labs, officers struggle to find time to collect and analyze the log books from the county’s 33 pharmacies.

The list is about 2½ months behind and 100 names long.

Illinois State Police said the same problem exist there.

Detectives say their time is better spent following tips, making undercover buys and impromptu visits to suspected meth makers.

Databases deliver

But pill lists aren’t piling up in Oklahoma anymore.

In October 2006 when the state had only a seventh of the number of labs found in Missouri, its leaders launched a statewide database that networked its 1,485 pharmacies. The system stops illegal sales at the counter.

“You’re basically putting the ‘Welcome’ mat out for meth cooks to come to your state if you don’t have a database,” said Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics spokesman Mark Woodward.

Oklahoma state officials directed a $500,000 federal grant to develop the Internet-based system. Missouri and Illinois receive the same grant, but use it to pay for more officers, technology and other drug enforcement efforts.

Oklahoma officials say the database played a key role in reducing the number of confirmed meth labs by 92 percent since the federal purchasing law was passed.

Kentucky, with a fifth of Missouri’s meth labs, is trying a similar approach.

For more than two years, police in Laurel County, Ky., have tested software called MethCheck.

Police detective Brian Lewis sets up watch lists, and the system e-mails him when people buy pills. He tracks purchasing patterns of people buying pills within minutes of each other.

In the first year of using the program, the number of labs seized more than quadrupled. Using federal and state money, Kentucky plans to spend about $500,000 to link its 1,290 pharmacies statewide in June.

Tired of waiting

Missouri’s House and Senate passed similar bills this year to build a system like Oklahoma’s. Even if both chambers agree on a program, the money won’t be available until next year. Even then, it’s unclear when the state’s 1,790 pharmacies will be linked.

Illinois lawmakers have yet to consider a statewide database, but it is under discussion.

But some counties in Missouri and Illinois aren’t waiting.

St. Louis County landed a $12,000 grant this year to install MethCheck at about 45 area pharmacies. Illinois State Police plan to link pharmacies in Madison, Adams and Vermilion counties to a separate database.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., has proposed a federal grant program to help states get databases, but it has yet to be approved.

It’s being fought by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores that worries about waits at store counters, clerical mistakes in data and clerks’ safety in refusing sales to meth addicts.

But Phil Woodward, who runs Oklahoma’s Pharmacist’s Association, called the drugstore industry’s arguments “pretty weak.”

“The bottom line is, we’ve had no trouble with it,” he said.

Take a look
An undercover detective with the Jefferson County drug task force fi nds a syringe full of meth in the sock of a suspected methamphetamine maker in January. Drugs were found in the suspect's car, and a complete drug-making lab was found behind the house. (J.B. Forbes/Lee News Service)
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Reader comments on this story - 5 total

Note: All views and opinions expressed in reader comments are solely those of the individual submitting the comment, and not those of the Pantagraph or its staff.

oklahomatiger wrote on May 4, 2008 10:03 AM:

" I have lived with the Oklahoma law for the past few years. My husband and I both take Sudafed for our allergies and it takes only a few minutes at the counter at Walgreens to buy it. Once you are in the system provided you use the same pharmacy which most people do, the next time is a snap.

It is well worth the trouble. When we first moved here in 2002 this state had a horrible Meth problem. The police were beside themselves trying to stop it. And no, itdoesn't come from Mexico folks. The people doing this drug are predominately white and span all income levels. I read about a former judge who got caught up in it, I believe he was from Missouri. There were upper middle income people here that lost everything when they got into that stuff.

I'm a native Illinois girl and I would love to see my home state follow the lead of Oklahoma this time, the Okies have it right. "

knowing is half the battle wrote on May 4, 2008 9:35 AM:

" I wish more of the meth heads knew that that the sudafed in meth is one of about 20 different ingredients. And of those 20, it's the only one that isn't some sort of toxic material or poison. "

mickeybaby wrote on May 4, 2008 7:26 AM:

" I always have to sign into an electronic database when buying my sudafed. I don't know what they're talking about when they say Illinois isn't connected to a database. That same database limits how much you can buy. It will reject you if you try to buy too much. "

OGS wrote on May 3, 2008 11:20 PM:

" A lot of the meth comes from Mexico. Bring the troops home from Iraq and secure OUR borders. "

bnresident wrote on May 3, 2008 11:02 PM:

" This is all good and everything, but it's a pain in the rear end for us true allergy sufferers who have to always to to a store when the pharmacy is open, show our ID, etc. I bet if you did the same type of approach to stop drunk driving (making people not only show ID, but sign logs AND limit the amount of alcohol they buy), then they'd feel the pain too.

Laws like this aren't going to stop the people making the illegal drugs - they will always find ways around the controls. What the laws will do is make legal users of Sudafed miserable because of all the hoops they have to jump through to buy it.

"
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