Network helps limit sale of drug-making items
Posted on Monday, April 21, 2008
The Web is assisting Arkansas pharmacies in the fight against methamphetamine.
About 770 pharmacies in the state will be connected by next month to a Web-based system that will track the purchase of cold medicines used to manufacture methamphetamine. The system is similar to one in Oklahoma that is credited with helping drive down the number of seized methamphetamine labs to their lowest level in nearly a decade.
By scanning a driver’s license, pharmacies will receive instant notification of whether a person is trying to purchase more pseudoephedrine than the law allows. It also will save investigators time in tracking such purchases.
The system is intended to tweak a 2005 state law and a 2006 federal law that both limit the amounts of ephedrine, pseudoephedrine and phenylpropanolamine that can be purchased at one time by individuals. The legal drugs are used in combination to make methamphetamine.
To get around the legal limits, methamphetamine cooks and users have been pharmacyhopping, known as “smurfing,” to purchase the ingredients. The new system will make that harder because pharmacy work- ers will have a way of knowing whether a person has purchased his limit.
Act 508 of 2007 directed the Arkansas Crime Information Center to implement an electronic recording system to replace the previous paper method.
LeadsOnlabs was awarded a $ 350, 000 bid on Feb. 6 to implement the system, said Charlie Pruitt, director of the information center.
More than half the state’s pharmacies have been connected to LeadsOnlabs’ Web site, and the rest are expected to be online ahead of the May 15 deadline, said John O’Brien, a spokesman for the Dallas-based company.
The system gives police another tool to fight methamphetamine while increasing security for customers and stores, O’Brien said.
Under the system, the license will be scanned and the program will flash “red” or “green,” telling the clerk whether the customer has reached his limit.
The pharmacy will not be able to tell where or when the person reached his limit, nor will they be able to tell how much a competitor is selling the product for.
Collier Drug Stores has been using the system for about two weeks, pharmacist Lori Ray said.
Ray reported no problems with the program so far. For the most part, customers are fine with it, she said.
“Some of them look a little alarmed and others are just glad that it’s happening because maybe it will cut down on some of the problems,” she said.
Fran Flener, the state’s drug director, said by linking pharmacies to LeadsOnlabs, the state hopes to see a reduction in the production of methamphetamine.
“Drug dealers are forever re-evaluating the way they do business,” Flener said. “We try to stay ahead of them, or at least keep pace.” Flener is part of a committee of the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws that’s preparing recommendations for Congress. Arkansas was invited to participate because the state is among those that is taking the lead in launching such systems.
One of the alliance’s recommendations will likely be for financial support from the Department of Justice for a nationwide network to regulate sales for the ingredients to make methamphetamine.
“If we don’t get our system up and compatible we’ll just have people from other states come in,” she said.
Sherry Green, chief executive officer for the National Alliance for Model State Drug Laws, said tracking systems are the best way to enforce laws that regulate the sale of items.
“The problem is people will cross state lines making multiple purchases hoping that states won’t talk to each other,” Green said.
That shouldn’t happen in Northwest Arkansas, however.
“Fortunately, yes, we have a great working relationship with the drug task force in Missouri and some counties in Oklahoma,” said Sgt. Jarred Crabtree, an investigator with the narcotics division in the Benton County sheriff’s office.
It makes sense for neighboring communities to work together because makers of methamphetamine don’t recognize state boundaries, he said.
“These people don’t see these borders,” he said.
Often a cook will make a batch of methamphetamine in Oklahoma one day and then move into Arkansas the next day to make a second batch, Crabtree said.
The new online system should help the state see a long-term reduction in methamphetamine lab seizures, Crabtree said.
The number of methamphetamine lab busts has increased this year in Benton County. It’s also risen for the two counties covered by the 4 th Judicial Drug Task Force, Sgt. Doug Pope said.
Pope said the task force, which covers Washington and Madison counties, likely will see an additional 10-12 lab busts this fiscal year, which ends June 30. The task force has had 32 lab seizures as of March 1. It had 32 the entire previous fiscal year.
An increase in seizures doesn’t necessarily equate to a rise in the number of labs, he said. It could be that officers simply were able to find more this year, Pope said.
The numbers could continue to rise in the short-term once the new system is in place, Pope said, because the tracking system provides additional intelligence for law enforcement.
Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, said officers in his state averaged about 160 methamphetamine lab seizures a month in 2004. Last year there were a total of 149, most of which were dump sites, Woodward said. So the hope is that the new system in Arkansas will help lead to a permanent reduction in methamphetamine labs, said Chris Harrison, director of the illicit labs section at the state Crime Laboratory in Little Rock. But law enforcement can only do so much, he said. Departments have a finite amount of resources and drug detectives have to set priorities. “There are as many methamphetamine labs as there [are ] law enforcement to find them,” Harrison said.
To contact this reporter: awallworth@arkansasonline. com
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