LAW TARGETS METH COOKS

Missouri lawmakers intentionally passed one of the toughest laws in the
nation restricting the retail sale of common cold remedies that provide a
key ingredient for making methamphetamine.

Led by a former assistant prosecutor from Kansas City, legislators crafted
tight limits on the sale of drugs containing ephedrine and pseudoephedrine
to try to stem a burgeoning crime wave and disastrous social effects they
see rooted in the abuse of the addictive, home-brewed stimulant.

The law went into effect Aug. 28 and the state sent out notices to retail
stores along with signs for the stores to post putting clerks and customers
on notice about the restrictions, said Joplin police Detective Jim Wallace.

Last month, Jasper County law enforcement agencies teamed up to test
compliance with the law by conducting a sting at 50 locations in Joplin,
Webb City, Carl Junction, Carthage and other areas of the county. The
operation resulted in misdemeanor charges against three store clerks.

In McDonald County, two Noel store owners and a clerk at their store who
allegedly sold an undercover officer more than 60 boxes of cold medicine
were charged last week with misdemeanor counts of illegal over-the-counter
sales of methamphetamine precursor drugs.

The law exempts store owners if they can show that they trained employees
on the law and its limits on ephedrine sales.

All of the clerks charged in the two counties are young, the oldest being
24-year-old Maska Augustine of Gravette, Ark., in the Noel bust on Oct. 8.

Joe Courtright, vice president of pharmaceuticals for the Mays Drug
Warehouse chain, said after the Jasper County sting that a clerk could go
awry of the law unintentionally by selling a customer a combination of
products routinely purchased to treat cold symptoms.

The law's architect, Rep. Cathy Jolly, D-Kansas City, said it's up to
stores to see that their employees are trained on those issues.

"It's something that any store that sells those products is going to have
become educated about how to comply with the law," she said. "The goal
certainly isn't to make things hard on the young clerk who's working, but
he needs to become educated on how to comply with the law."

The law limits sales to no more than three packages of any drug containing
ephedrine or pseudoephedrine. Some stores have put over-the-counter
medicines like Sudafed and Actifed in locked cabinets or under counters,
requiring customers to ask for the products so that a clerk can control the
amount sold.

Jolly said the limit was decided based on what law enforcement officers
said would reduce availability to meth cooks.

"We worked with law enforcement agencies that testified for the bill. We
listened," she said. "The bill is very strict. I believe it's one of the
toughest in the country, if not the toughest. Our goal was make it a tough
law. When people buy too much ephedrine, it raises a red flag. The goal is
to help law enforcement stop drugs."

Reducing availability

Frank Lundien, commander of the Jasper County Drug Task Force, which
participated in the sting, said the three-package limit is "based on what a
reasonable person would buy."

One store manager, Brooke Rentfro, of Food 4 Less, 2800 E. 32nd St.., said
after the Oct. 17 sting that she thought it took 100 packages of cold
medicine to make a quantity of meth.

Lundien would not say how many boxes of ephedrine-containing drugs are
needed to make any specific quantity of meth, nor would he discuss the
extraction method cooks use to harvest ephedrine from the medications. He
said that information is widely available to those who want to use it for
the illegal manufacture of the drug.

But, he did say that the limit is strict because ephedrine can be
efficiently extracted from common drugs. If a box of cold medicine contains
10 grams of ephedrine, that can make 8 grams of methamphetamine.

Lundien said Wallace, the Joplin police detective, suggested the sting to
see if stores were complying with the sales limit.

Wallace said another officer brought up the idea of a sting, "so I just
kind of ran with it." He said store clerks were generally already aware of
the law because of the state's information campaign about it that began
earlier.

"We even had a couple of clerks say, 'I know I'm not supposed to sell you
this,' but they sold it anyway," Wallace said.

Law officers at one time had said the drug was popular because it was cheap
and easily manufactured from items that could be readily bought at discount
stores, hardware stores and drug stores.

Lundien said the perception that meth has become the drug of choice because
it is cheap is a myth. Meth is selling for $100 a gram, he said.

"We're seeing 8-balls (one-eighth of an ounce, or 3.5 grams) for $260. It's
not really cheaper," he said. "It's the same price as cocaine. Cocaine is
about $100 a gram. But it's just a bigger high, a longer-lasting high (than
cocaine)."

Wrong Ingredient

The stings also are generating controversy because a clerk at one
health-food store, Margie's Herb Shop, was targeted, though the prosecutor
declined to file a charge.

The store owner, Margie Lundien, contended that the product sold at her
store targeted by the sting, Magic Herb, is exempt from the law because it
contains the natural ephedra plant that is ground and mixed with at least
10 other ingredients. It is impossible to extract ephedrine from products
containing the plant, she maintained.

Lt. Jeff Merriman, commander of the investigations division at the Jasper
County Sheriff's Department, acknowledged that natural ephedra products are
exempt from the law and that officers made a mistake when they included the
herb products in the sting.

He said local law enforcement officers were not aware that ephedra, the
natural plant, was exempt. He said an undercover officer was sent to the
store because bottles of Magic Herb had been found at residences where drug
labs had been discovered, and that lab analyses of it showed ephedrine content.

Meth-Related Crimes

Jolly said she doesn't believe the limit on cold-pill sales in Missouri is
too tight.

"As a former assistant prosecutor for Jackson County, part of my job was
working with law enforcement to close down meth labs," she said. "Anything
we can do to reduce the ability of drug dealers causing more crime is a
positive thing in Missouri."

Law enforcement officers have said that in addition to illegal drug abuse,
meth addiction is contributing to a swelling number of other crimes and
tragedies.

Some examples:

A Carthage man is scheduled for trial Jan. 5 on a charge of murder in what
Carthage police Chief Dennis Veatch has said may have been the area's first
meth-related child death. Dennis Doubet is charged with the Sept. 23, 2002,
death of his 11-month-old son, Zarrin Doubet. Authorities said the baby
died after drinking camp fuel that prosecutors allege Doubet had stored in
a soda bottle after making a batch of meth.

In another Carthage case, Jeffrey Hahn was sentenced June 18 to serve two
life sentences for the suffocation of his infant daughter and the stabbing
of his toddler son in a domestic-abuse case that Jasper County Prosecutor
Dean Dankelson said involved a number of factors, including meth abuse.

Alleged meth makers in Miami, Okla., are suspected of causing an explosion
by igniting meth-making chemicals while their house was being searched for
methamphetamine in September. Law enforcement officers conducting the
search escaped the resulting fire without injury.