STICKERS PROGRAM TARGETS DRUG DEALERS

STILLWATER -- Shoppers in Payne County, beware: Buy too much sinus
medication and you may be reported as a possible methamphetamine
dealer.

The same goes for too much alcohol, rock salt, coffee filters,
lithium batteries and anything containing ephedrine, pseudoephedrine
or ether.

It's all part of a three-month-old sticker program by the Payne
County sheriff to target the growing Oklahoma meth industry.

"It is getting so easy to manufacture. Anyone with a stove and a pot
can make the stuff," Payne County Undersheriff Ken Willerton said.

Willerton heads a group of deputies canvassing Payne County
convenience stores, pharmacy supply stores and drug stores, asking
the businesses to place stickers warning shoppers about buying large
quantities of methamphetamine-making materials.

"We got those stickers to put in places so that people would be aware
of what they are buying," Willerton said. "It has turned out to be
more of a deterrent, I think. ... We think people go in, see the
signs and go somewhere else."

Willerton said no threshold is set for what constitutes too much of
the legal products; it is left up to the judgment of business owners.

"Someone goes in and buys 40 or 50 bottles of ephedrine, they aren't
buying it to take," he said. "They're only buying it to make
something with."

Kym Koch, Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation spokeswoman, said
she believes the sticker program is the first of its kind in the
state. The program could be effective because of its ability to make
people pay more attention to the meth drug trade, she said.

"Basically, anything that raises the awareness in the public and with
the store owners is a good thing," she said.

The measure of the sticker program's success will be the resulting
arrests, she said.

Troy Simons, who owns Yale Pharmacy in Yale, said he is aware of the
sticker program but has not been approached by Payne County deputies.

"The pharmacy here is the only one in town," Simons said. "And it is
a real small operation. I don't even keep those big bottles of
Sudafed around, just the 24-count. Those bigger 100- count bottles
only seem like they'd be used for bad reasons."

Simons said his small operation and location in a small town
inherently makes his store a place meth dealers avoid.

"If someone were to come in and buy a lot of that stuff, they'd be
noticed right away," he said. "They don't want to be noticed."

Terry Pope, who owns Pope's Grocery in Yale, said he hasn't been
approached about the stickers but would rather keep reporting
suspicious purchases rather than deter them.

"We already turn people in who come in here and buy too much of that
kind of stuff," Pope said. "If we were to get those stickers and put
them on the store window, then that would discourage them and make
them go somewhere else. I'd rather catch them doing it."

Consumer's IGA in Stillwater decided to use the stickers because of
the community service it provides, said Charles Fowler, the store's
manager.

"I thought it was a great idea," he said. "We have a very visible
location on each of our registers to attach that sticker. I think
people really like it."

The sticker program comes after a recently released report that
officers last year destroyed 22 methamphetamine labs in Payne County.
The number is up slightly from the 19 labs destroyed during 2000,
according to the Payne County district attorney's office.

Busts are coordinated by the drug task force for Payne and Logan
counties, where 42 labs were destroyed last year.

"We've been seeing an increase in meth lab numbers for years," said
Jack Bowyer, a Payne County prosecutor who heads the task force.
"They are popping up in rural areas as well as the Stillwater city
limits."

Funded by about $100,000 in grant money from the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency, the task force is made up of officers from
several different agencies within Payne County. The Stillwater Police
Department provides two of the five officers on the task force. The
task force also has officers from the Guthrie Police Department along
with deputies from Payne and Logan Counties.

"We participate in the (task force) because people who are into drugs
commit a large number of other related crimes such as burglary,
larceny fraud, and, less frequently, crimes against persons,"
Stillwater Police Chief Norman McNickle said. "The more drug
distributors arrested and out of business, the less property crimes
committed against our citizens."