State meth-busters get new tool
Posted on Thursday, June 5, 2008
SEARCY — Purchases of a key ingredient in methamphetamine production now are a keystroke away for law enforcement officers.
The Arkansas Crime Information Center has set up an electronic logbook to track sales of products such as cold medicine and cough syrup containing pseudoephedrine. Only pharmacies are allowed to sell such products.
The new technology allows law enforcement officers to use computers to access a system that flags someone who buys pseudoephedrine in amounts beyond what is allowed by law. Single purchases are limited to 3 grams, and no one can purchase more than 9 grams in 30 days.
Until last month, when the new system went online, officers would have to go to pharmacies to review their logbooks to determine who exceeded the maximum legal amounts — an involved process that took time away from other investigative duties.
The system is a response to the practice of meth “smurfing,” in which people who cook the drug go to several pharmacies and purchase the maximum amount of pseudoephedrine allowed by law at each pharmacy.
At a training session for law enforcement officers Wednesday held in a training room at the Searcy Police Department, Attorney General Dustin Mc-Daniel hailed the new system as an “additional tool to put in the hands of law enforcement.”
The Arkansas Crime Information Center “found a way to create the most effective system possible at the lowest cost and the most accountability to taxpayers,” McDaniel said.
LeadsOnLabs, a Dallas company, was one of two companies that competed for the Arkansas Crime Information Center contract and came in with the most competitive bid, said Charles Pruitt, the center’s director. LeadsOnLabs’ proprietary software, MethMonitor, is an outgrowth of the company’s national database for property crimes, according to company materials.
Pruitt said his agency has spent about $ 350, 000 so far on the system. The agency also will hire someone to coordinate the system, he said.
The system costs nothing for participating pharmacies. “It was important to all of us that this system be user-friendly and not a burden on Arkansas pharmacies,” McDaniel said.
The system has been online only a few weeks, and it already has paid dividends, said Bill Clinton, operations administrator for the Arkansas Crime Information Center. “There’s been some cases made already.”
Pruitt’s agency is in the midst of holding more than a dozen training sessions around the state to familiarize law enforcement officers with the system.
The system will require users to register and only those law enforcement officers assigned to develop drug cases will be allowed to register, McDaniel said. Officers won’t be able to view any other prescription sales.
Officials hope the system will cut off a supply source for methamphetamine producers, who have “smurfed” to get around the 2005 state law that placed pseudoephedrine products behind the counter and required pharmacies to keep a logbook of their sales. McDaniel said the 2005 law has been effective. In 2004, law enforcement officers identified 1, 200 meth labs in Arkansas. In the year the law passed, the number had dropped to just more than 500. The next year, it dropped to 463.
Still, it wasn’t long before police noticed people trying to get around the law. In 2006, the North Little Rock police began operating a system similar to the statewide system.
“Closing up one more loophole in the supply chain is critical,” McDaniel said.
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