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MERCHANT TIP LEADS TO DRUG BUST

HUGO, Okla.  - A tip from a Lamar County merchant about an excessive purchase of cold medication led to the arrest of two people on drug charges Wednesday as they crossed the Red River from Texas back into Oklahoma. 

Two narcotics officers with the Choctaw County Sheriff's Department were waiting as Anthony L.  Green and Paula Lee of Hugo crossed back into Oklahoma on U.S.  271. 

A drug-sniffing dog alerted to more than 600 pseudoephedrine pills on the floorboard, and the officers took Green and Lee to the Choctaw County Jail in Hugo, where they were booked on charges of possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and possession of pseudoephedrine with intent to manufacture. 

Hugo is about 10 miles north of the Red River and about 25 miles north of Paris. 

"You can praise the merchants of Lamar County, because they made this arrest possible," Choctaw County Sheriff Lewis Collins told The Paris News on Thursday. 

"What's happening, when someone goes into a store and buys a large quantity of these drugs like Sudafed that are used to make methamphetamine, the merchants in Lamar County have learned to be suspicious," said an officer who was in on Wednesday's arrest. 

"So in one store, when these two made their purchase on Wednesday, the merchant got their license tag number as they left and called the Lamar County Sheriff's Department, and they in turn called us," said the officer, who asked not to be identified. 

"We just happened to be in a position where we could intercept 'em as they crossed back into Oklahoma.  We had been sitting there about 30 minutes when they crossed the river.  We got 615 120-milligram pills, which had been purchased from a series of stores.  They'd already popped them out of the packages into a plastic bag."

Oklahoma has a relatively new law that stiffened regulations over the sale of medication containing ephedrine.  Texas has no such law. 

"You can buy it in Oklahoma, but it's behind the counter now and available only from a pharmacist, and they'll give you only so much, and you've got to show an ID and everything, so people are going over into Texas to buy it, shoplift it, or whatever," the officer said. 

"It's legal to go over in Texas and buy as much as they want, but they can't bring that much back into Oklahoma.  Possession of more than nine grams of pseudoephedrine in Oklahoma is a felony."

The 615 pills seized on Wednesday "came out to 67 grams, or something like that.  It would have made about two and a half ounces of dope if they knew what they were doing and cooked it right."

Methamphetamine is sold on the street for about $100 a gram.  That's approximately equal to a package of Sweet 'N Low. 

As in Paris and Lamar County, methamphetamine has become the No.  1 illicit drug in Hugo and Choctaw County, said the narcotics officer who helped in Wednesday's arrest. 

"By far.  Marijuana is pretty well a thing of the past here.  Marijuana is minor stuff anymore.  The meth problem is an epidemic.  In the old marijuana days, it would take 'em all summer to grow a marijuana crop.  They can cook up a batch of meth in three hours," he said. 

Choctaw County's drug task force took down 21 meth labs in 2003.  It's ahead of that pace this year. 

"We could use all the help we can get from the public.  If anyone suspects there's a meth lab, if they smell something unusual, we'll check it out," the officer said.