RETAILERS URGED TO REPORT CUSTOMERS WHO BUY METH INGREDIENTS

OWENSBORO, Ky. -- 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 consumers with the sniffles from buying 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 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 recipe is on the Internet.

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 to
just six in 1996. In Indiana, the number of labs state police
dismantled rose from six in 1995 to 681 in 2001.

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

To cut off the "P and B" people, police in Kentucky and Indiana say
they had to turn to retailers for support.

They distributed flyers 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."

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 buyer's 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."

Meth ingredients

Items commonly used to make methamphetamines:

- --ephedrine, pseudoephedrine (cold pills)

- --acetone (household chemicals, nail polish remover, paint)

- --alcohol (gasoline additives or rubbing)

- --toluene (brake cleaner)

- --ether (engine starter)

- --sulfuric acid (drain cleaner)

- --iodine (veterinary products)

- --salt (table/rock)

- --lithium (batteries)

- --anhyrdrous ammonia (farm fertilizer)

- --sodium hydroxide (lye)

- --red phosphorus (matches)

- --hydrochloric acid

- --coffee filters

Source: Indiana State Police