TAKE METH PRECURSORS OUT OF STORES, DEPUTY SAYS

ROGERS -- Deputy Tom Brewster says there's a new front in the war against
drugs -- convenience stores.

At least one product being sold over the counter in some area convenience
stores -- ephedrine -- is "only one atom away from being methamphetamine,"
Brewster, the drug education deputy for the Benton County Sheriff's Office,
told a meeting of the Youth Concerns committee Thursday.

Brewster said what members of his generation bought illegally -- yellow
jackets (speed) and black mollies (downers) -- are sold legally in
convenience stores in Northwest Arkansas today.

Also available -- and prominently displayed on store counters -- is an ink
pen shaped like a hypodermic needle, with a picture of a little girl in a
nurse's uniform on the packaging, Brewster told committee members. It's
just another link in the chain that tells kids that drug use is tolerated
in the community, he said. He also mentioned commercials on television in
which drug companies push pills for over- anxious adults.

By the time kids go to school and are approached by drug dealers, they
already have the idea that drug abuse is "no big deal," Brewster said.

Brewster called upon committee members to join with other citizens to take
a stand against the selling of such products.

"We've got to try to bring back moral values and not just the chase of the
almighty dollar," the deputy said.

A committee member asked why the local Chamber of Commerce couldn't
pressure convenience store retailers to get rid of the products Brewster
mentioned.

That's not really what the organization does, answered Greg Hoggatt,
director of Drug-Free Rogers-Lowell, a program of the Rogers-Lowell Area
Chamber of Commerce.

However, Hoggatt said, the Chamber does plan next year to offer training to
retail clerks in a couple of drug-related areas.

One program will reinforce for clerks that they shouldn't sell tobacco to
customers younger than 18, Hoggatt said. Another will increase their
awareness of the over-the-counter drugs they sell, he said.

Hoggatt said it's hoped a program to check on how well retailers follow the
training will be established, as well.

Rogers police officers Tracy Brewer and Dean Durr, both resource officers
in the Rogers schools, also addressed the committee, which met this month
in the Community Room at the Rogers Police Department.

While the "gateway" drugs of cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana remain in
constant use, young people in the area also have discovered coricidin,
which is found in over-the-counter cold medications, Brewer said.

"It's the new wonder drug," Brewer said, adding that in some people the
drug mimics the effects of LSD.

Durr, who teaches the Drug Awareness and Resistance Education program, said
next year the program would add classes in the 5th, 7th and 9th grades.

Research has shown that reminding kids of the anti-drug messages they heard
in lower grades helps them to resist drug use, Durr said.