Pubdate: Mon, 14 Aug 2006
Source: Daily Chronicle (IL)
Copyright: 2006 Daily Chronicle
Contact:  http://www.daily-chronicle.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3685
Note: Include daytime phone number
Author: Matt Adrian
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

STATE LOOKING AT CHANGING NEW METH LAW

SPRINGFIELD - State law enforcement officials want to improve 
logbooks used to track cold medicine sales that could be connected to 
methamphetamine. While a new law appears to have made it more 
difficult for meth cooks to make the drug, as well as slowed the flow 
of addicts coming to Illinois from border states, Attorney General 
Lisa Madigan's office is looking to tweak the system.

"We're making steady progress on a number of fronts," said Cara 
Smith, the attorney general's policy director.

Since mid January, when the law went into effect, drugs containing 
pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in methamphetamine, have been 
kept behind store counters or doled out by pharmacists. People buying 
these types of medications must also show photo identification and 
sign a logbook.

However, the logs can't be searched in real time and there is no 
standard for how the records must be kept. "Sometimes the pharmacist 
would write out the information, which was really helpful because it 
was normally legible and kept in a consistent way," Smith said. 
"Other times, they would just turn the sheet over to the customer and 
have the customer scrawl it in and you couldn't read the stuff."

To avoid detection and circumvent restrictions, meth makers often 
travel long distances to scrounge up the needed ingredients.

Creating an electronic database could make it easier for law 
enforcement to build cases and track pseudoephedrine sales as they occur.

Oklahoma has a tracking system that went online in August and 
Illinois officials are planning a visit to see how the system works.

Smith said a working group of law enforcement and retailers are 
considering two types of tracking systems. One would alert store 
clerks and pharmacists when a purchaser had reached the monthly limit 
of pseudoephedrine-based drugs. The other type of system simply 
records the sale so police can use the information to build cases. 
State Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, who has pushed several key pieces 
of legislation on methamphetamine, said he is leery of a database.

"If you're not a meth addict why should you have your name in a 
database," Rose said. "The vast majority of people that buy Sudafed 
are not meth addicts. I don't like the idea of the government 
tracking my every move."

The new law has made Illinois less attractive to out-of-state meth 
cooks, who were trying to avoid heavy restrictions in their home 
states, Smith said.

"We're not seeing meth cooks come from other states because ...you 
have no better chance of getting your Sudafed here than you do in the 
state you are coming from," she said.

Difficulty getting ingredients for making meth has also led to 
smaller batches of the drug being seized, Smith said.

"The cooks can't get large quantities to make big batches like they 
could when the key ingredients were unrestricted," she said.

However, compliance with the law by retailers remains an issue.

In May, the state did a random compliance check of 462 stores of 
which 346 sold products containing psuedoephedrine. This included 271 
pharmacies and 75 convenience stores.

The check found that pharmacists tended to be in compliance, while 
convenience stores fell far behind. Overall, only 9 of the 75 
convenience stores checked followed state law. Cook County scored a 
49 percent compliance rate, the lowest in the state.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman