STOPPING METH

Legislature, Police Seek Law To Restrict Pseudoephedrine Sales

Even though some pharmacies have taken it upon themselves to keep illegal
drug makers from loading up on pseudoephedrine, police and legislators hope
to team up to limit sales of the drug.

The methamphetamine boom in West Virginia has taken such a commanding role
with many law enforcement agencies that many in the field say something has
to give. Homemade drug labs are popping up in urban neighborhoods, rural
mobile homes and in motel rooms. Police have become experts in seeing meth
ingredients and busting the volatile, toxic drug labs.

The labs and their operators get their starts in common places with
unsuspecting ingredients.

Legislators and law enforcement officials have plans to clamp down by using
a successful method underway in other states. Oklahoma, for instance, is
now nearly five months into a new law that limits the sale of
pseudoephedrine, one of the main ingredients in methamphetamine and an
active ingredient in many over-the-counter decongestants and sinus medicines.

In West Virginia, Metro Drug Unit Lt. Steve Neddo, who heads the drug force
for Kanawha and Putnam counties, hopes to follow Oklahoma's lead. Reports
from Oklahoma show the new law has had a significant impact on the meth
problem there.

In the first six months of this year, Oklahoma authorities dismantled 386
labs, compared to 510 during that time period the year before.

"We've said all along that if you control pseudoephedrine, you can control
meth production. The stats are backing that up," an Oklahoma Bureau of
Narcotics spokesman said in July.

Neddo said he isn't hoping for a law that would make pseudoephedrine a
controlled substance, but he does look forward to something that could put
the brakes on the scores of purchases made by meth cooks.

"If we could do something real similar to Oklahoma, it's got to work,"
Neddo said.

State Senate Minority Leader Vic Sprouse, R-Kanawha, said he wants to
promote a pseudoephedrine law, perhaps as early as a special legislative
session in September if one is held.

"We want to put up some road blocks for those people who want to buy large
quantities to make meth," Sprouse said.

What it takes

Meth makers use their homes, cars or rented rooms as their production
sites. They shop around for household ingredients such as Coleman cooking
fuel. They strip off matchbook strike pads. Once they've created their
production line, they use their pseudoephedrine-containing sinus pills to
split out the crucial meth ingredient.

It's that chemical breakdown, which requires dozens of individual tablets,
that a new law would target, Neddo said. Gel capsules of namebrand drugs
like Sudafed aren't used by meth cooks because it's too difficult to separate.

Part of Oklahoma's law put a 9-gram limit per month on pseudoephedrine
purchases by any single customer. Neddo said he knows many people with
clogged sinuses and runny noses would panic if their standby drugs are
restricted.

To prove it wouldn't be a restriction, he did calculations using
pseudoephedrine products seized in Kanawha Valley lab busts. Most of the
tablet-form pills he looked at contained less than .10 grams of
pseudoephedrine each.

"It would take a lot of tablets to mount up to the 9 grams," Neddo said.

Pharmacists recommend no more than four tablets of the
pseudoephedrine-based drugs in a day. In a month's time, that would add up
to 7.2 grams of the ingredient, still well below any proposed 9-gram limit.

"The law would even allow people to contraindicate themselves and exceed
what is recommended for their health," Neddo said. "We're talking about
people who go in and buy 10, 15 or 20 boxes at a time."

In some busts, Neddo said police have taken garbage bags filled with the
tablets.

"To get an ounce of meth you need and ounce of pseudoephedrine," Neddo said.

'A real opportunity'

West Virginia does have a law on the books that makes it illegal to possess
the combination of ingredients to make meth.

While that has brought county prosecutors and police a weapon in combating
meth labs, the sheer number of lab discoveries shows it may not be enough.

Jeff Wallingstrum, the resident agent in charge at Charleston's Drug
Enforcement Administration office, has experienced the meth problem for
years. In the mid-1990s he dealt with it in Oregon and has watched it creep
into West Virginia, initially on a large and noticeable scale in Wood
County, then throughout the state.

He said meth cooks went to the pseudoephedrine method for meth from a more
difficult manner that had been used for years. Word of mouth spread the
recipe and cooking instructions. The Internet has also helped cooks spread
the word.

"These guys are very ambitious," Wallingstrum said.

The DEA administers a federal COPS grant that pays for the removal of toxic
chemicals and materials from meth labs. In the past three fiscal years,
from Oct. 1 to Sept. 30 of 2001, 2002, 2003 and up to Aug. 23 of this year,
law enforcement statewide has captured 319 methamphetamine drug labs,
according to DEA figures.

The most substantial numbers come from seizure so far this year, when 197
labs were dismantled.

If West Virginia gets a law and sees the success Oklahoma has, it could
mean a reduction in those numbers.

"I mean, a 25 percent decrease would help us," Neddo said. "Anything would
help."

Ideas for the law include stipulations that all pharmacies be required to
put tablet-form drugs containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter.

Some stores, like Charleston's Kanawha Boulevard Drug Emporium, already do
that and also limit the number that can be purchased.

Jennifer Dyess, a pharmacy technician at Drug Emporium, said the
pseudoephedrine drugs were pulled off shelves voluntarily by pharmacy staff.

"They were stealing it and they were wiping us clean," she said. "We would
love to have a law passed."

Sprouse said he hopes a new law would also make pharmacists ask for
identification and for buyers to sign a logbook.

In some drug lab busts, meth cooks have been known to have stockpiles of
pseudoephedrine drugs. Some buy them in mass quantities for their cooking,
Neddo said.

Sprouse wants the stores that allow that kind of buying power to be held
accountable.

"We need to try to strangle off the supply of what has become an epidemic,"
Sprouse said. "It will be a slight inconvenience, but I think we have a
real opportunity here."

Other meth ingredients, such as the gasoline engine antifreeze product
Heet, can be bought in convenience stores in four-packs.

"They're selling these cases of Heet, an antifreeze, in the middle of
summer," Neddo said. "[Stores] know what they're doing."

To contact staff writer Charles Shumaker, use e-mail or call 348-1240.