RETAILERS LOOK OUT FOR METH MAKERS

Businesses Acting As Police Informants

OWENSBORO - Four boxes of cold medicine and a suspicious store clerk put
Suzett Calloway back behind bars.

Wanted for murder after her son died as a result of a meth lab explosion,
Calloway had fled Georgia.

She eluded police for several days, until she walked up to a check-out
counter at a Wal-Mart in Western Kentucky with four boxes of Sudafed.

The sales clerk, on the lookout for customers buying ingredients that could
be used to make meth, urged a Wal-Mart security guard to follow Calloway.

After a stop for more Sudafed at a second retailer, Calloway was arrested.

Increasingly, authorities in Kentucky and Indiana are turning to retailers
for assistance in catching meth makers cooking the lucrative and addictive
drug in backyard sheds, motel rooms and vans.

"Without their help, you can't hardly do anything about the meth problem,
at the rate it's increasing," Kentucky State Police Trooper Mark Applin said.

Some retailers say they participate out of a sense of duty. Others do it to
curb meth-cooking shoplifters who might buy one box of a cold medicine,
only to steal three others.

Still others worry that a lack of cooperation could cause lawmakers to
place harsh restrictions on them.

Not everyone likes the idea of police turning to shopkeepers for help.

One civil rights advocate said using retailers to report shoppers could
lead to abuse in evidence gathering. Others say placing restrictions on the
sales of cold medicine could hinder the ability of legitimate cold
sufferers to buy the drugs.

"It's probably not fair to the manufacturer, but what do you do?" asked Lou
Watkins of Baum's Market in Boonville, Ind., where the bulk of the cold
medicine is kept behind the counter. "They steal more of it than they buy."

Unlike the ingredients of most illegal drugs, the products used to make
methamphetamines are legal and easily available: cold pills, nail polish
remover, rubbing alcohol, salt and batteries.

The overhead costs are low, $400 per ounce, with payoffs of $2,000 to
$2,500 per ounce, said Detective Joe Moran of the Owensboro Police Department.

"The price of gold is about $320 per ounce. It's worth more than gold on
the streets," Moran said. "When you're fighting those elements there, the
addictiveness of the drug and the ease that the drug is made, it's a
doper's dream."

State police in Kentucky seized 268 meth labs last year, compared with just
six in 1996. In Indiana, the number of labs state police dismantled rose
from six in 1995 to 681 in 2001.

The 'P and B'

In street lingo, those who drive from store to store buying or shoplifting
meth ingredients are "P and B" people, or pill and lithium battery buyers.

To cut off the "P and B" people, police in Kentucky and Indiana distributed
fliers listing meth ingredients and asked retailers to report the license
plate numbers of suspicious-looking customers.

In Columbus, Ind., a Wal-Mart employee in March reported that a customer
had attempted to shoplift three boxes of cold medicine as he purchased
rubber gloves and coffee filters.

Police searching the 41-year-old man's car found a meth lab inside it,
along with 1,100 cold medicine tablets, Columbus police spokesman Sgt. Matt
Myers said.

"That is one that would not have been solved if the Wal-Mart employee had
not caught him shoplifting and called it in," Myers said.

Employees at Wal-Mart's 2,700 stores are encouraged to help police, said
Rob Phillips, a spokesman at the company's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters.
The store also limits the sale of cold medicines.

"It's not about sales," Phillips said. "It's doing what's right."

If retailers are reporting suspicious people to authorities, there is
potential for abuse, said John Krull, executive director of the Indiana
Civil Liberties Union in Indianapolis.

"If you've got a pharmacist who's got a grudge, it creates an opportunity,
obviously," Krull said. "I'm sure the police will tell you they're only
asking them to be informants, but they're building and compiling evidence."

Good medicine gone bad

Carl Johnson, director of government relations for Sudafed manufacturer
Pfizer Inc., said the company supports allowing consumers to buy a maximum
of three boxes of cold medicine. But it does not back placing cold medicine
behind a counter.

"It's really outrageous that the illegal activities of these illicit drug
manufacturers and dealers are really turning good medicines into something
quite the contrary," said Bob Fauteux, a Pfizer spokesman. "In the process,
they are making it increasingly difficult for people who have legitimate
needs for these products to access them."

While retailers are tired of the meth cookers' shoplifting, some worry that
they will be forced to keep a buyers' log or face other burdensome
restrictions if they don't do something to help, said Joe Lackey, president
of the Indiana Grocery and Convenience Store Association.

"We try to cooperate with law enforcement when we can to provide this
information," Lackey said. "It's in our interest because it's in our
customers' interests."

On the Net

Kentucky State Police: www.state.ky. us/agencies/ksp/ksphome.htm

Wal-Mart: www.walmart.com