Pubdate: Sun, 04 Nov 2007 Source: Austin American-Statesman (TX) Copyright: 2007 Austin American-Statesman Contact: http://www.statesman.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/32 Author: Mary Ann Roser Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) IN METH WAR, PHARMACY LOGS GO UNREVIEWED Ephedrine Laws Have Helped Reduce Number Of Domestic Labs, Officials Say When you sign your name to buy certain cold medicines, no one might ever look through the log that pharmacies and other stores are required to keep to aid the battle against methamphetamine, a highly addictive stimulant that most law enforcement agencies consider their No. 1 drug problem. Two years after the Texas Legislature passed a law that made it harder to buy Sudafed and other over-the-counter medicines containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine - key ingredients of meth - many police and sheriffs' agencies said they don't have time to routinely check the logs, most of which are kept on paper. Several Central Texas law enforcement officials said the lack of a centralized database, for which the Legislature did not provide the funding, means they can't just punch in a name and see how often an individual is buying the cold medications in stores around Texas. Austin police don't check the logs, unless they are working on a case or a pharmacist calls about a suspicious purchase, said officer Veneza Aguinaga,a spokeswoman for the Austin Police Department. There are simply too many stores to keep up with, she said. Even so, state law enforcement officials say the law has sharply cut meth lab production. In addition to the logs, the state law, along with a 2006 federal law, limits how much of the medicines a person can buy and requires that the drugs be kept behind the counter, a rule that some law officers credit with having the greatest effect on quashing meth labs. At the same time, many stores appear to have stopped selling the medicines, in part because the state now requires convenience stores and other outlets that lack a pharmacy to pay a $600 registration fee for the right to sell the products for two years. Out of 30,000 to 40,000 stores the state estimated to be in that group, only about 300 paid the fee, said Karen Tannert, chief pharmacist with the Drugs and Medical Devices Group at the Department of State Health Services. "Prior to the ephedrine law, individuals that were manufacturing were going into the stores and were scooping the shelves clear," said Detective John Cottle, narcotics district commander for Austin and the surrounding areas at the Texas Department of Public Safety. Stores that contain pharmacies don't pay the fee because they already are licensed by the Board of Pharmacy, Tannert said. The state law took effect Aug. 1, 2005, and statewide seizures of meth labs dropped by half from 2005 to 2006, said DPS spokesman Tom Vinger. From January to September of this year, just 33 meth labs were seized, compared with 103 for all of 2006. In 2002, Texas law enforcement seized more than 350 meth labs. There have been similar drops around the country since the state and federal laws passed, according to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. But that doesn't mean meth use has dropped, law enforcement officials say. Statewide, DPS says it seized 302 kilograms of meth during traffic stops in 2006, up from 159 kilos the year before and 197 in 2004. The DEA, meanwhile, saw its meth seizures in Texas jump from 813 kilos in 2004 to 1,054 in 2005, then down to 681 last year. Law officers said meth from Mexico is filling the void created by the seizures of homegrown labs. And because demand for the drug remains high, the price of meth is going up, officers said. In the past year, Cottle said, the price in Texas has risen from between $850 and $1,200 an ounce to $1,500 to $1,600 an ounce. He said he fears that increase could encourage a return of more meth labs in Texas. In Bandera County alone, the sheriff's department says it has busted six meth labs in the past six weeks, an unusually high number. "On the average, we have about one every three months," said patrol Sgt. Jerry Johnson. Most of the six were mom-and-pop operations, an indication that the high prices could be encouraging people to "cook for themselves," Johnson said. A few years ago, the state lost federal funding for most of its drug task forces - special units dedicated to drug enforcement - as the federal government diverted the money to domestic security. Most rural areas have fewer officers dedicated to drug investigations than in years past. Burnet County, for example, had 10 officers devoted to drug cases in a four-county region before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but lost most of them in the past two years. The county now has four such officers, said Capt. Dwight Hardin, who is in charge of the criminal investigations division at the sheriff's office there. And while Hill Country sheriff's departments say the law regulating ephedrine and pseudoephedrine is helping, many say they still are busy chasing meth makers, who favor rural areas where the fumes from cooking their product are less likely to be detected. Labs can be created in kitchens, motel rooms, even car trunks, using legal ingredients, including: brake fluid, drain cleaner, anhydrous ammonia, lye, coffee filters and lab glassware, in addition to cold medicine. The labs generate toxic waste and can cause deadly explosions. To get around the law, meth ingredient buyers will go from town to town buying medicines, making it difficult to track them by studying paper logs, investigators said. In Bandera County, Johnson said he checks the logs monthly, sometimes traveling to Kerrville, Boerne and San Antonio. Occasionally Johnson said he will notice the same names and initiate an investigation. "It's a real good tool," said Hardin, the captain in Burnet County. "Unfortunately, the Legislature did not help fund the enforcement of it. They left it to local agencies and law enforcement to develop their own databases." Burnet County is talking to a company in Dallas about the possibility of accessing a database it wants to create in some Texas communities by computerizing pharmacy logs - if Burnet County can afford it, Hardin said. Oklahoma, the first state to pass a law limiting ephedrine and pseudoephedrine purchases, pays a private vendor to compile information from pharmacy and store logs into a central database that law enforcement can search. "It was necessary," said Brian Surber, a special agent with Oklahoma's narcotics bureau ."We had an 80 to 90 percent reduction (in meth labs) without the database. But I want a 100 percent reduction." Texas Rep. Leo Berman, R-Tyler, a main author of the state law, said he's pleased with it. "We're not thinking of doing anything more statewide," he said. "The statewide database would be costly." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek