Breaking meth's hold: Clamping down on ephedrine
Missouri is among 29 states considering a law like Oklahoma's to severely limit sales of key ingredient.
Jan 30/2005
By Matt Wagner and James Goodwin
News-Leader Staff
Juston Hutchinson has been scarred by methamphetamine.
In 1994, the broad-shouldered undersheriff took a 16-gauge shotgun blast to the chest while storming a meth house in Muskogee County, Okla., southeast of Tulsa.
Though a Kevlar vest absorbed much of the impact, a quarter-size scar reminds him of a time when meth makers seemed to have the upper hand in Muskogee County.
Now, though, officers are gaining ground. In April, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry signed a law severely restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine — a nasal decongestant in over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine that is needed to create meth.
Starch-based pseudoephedrine pills were immediately tucked securely behind pharmacy counters. Pharmacists now ask customers for photo identification and make them sign a written log verifying the number of pills purchased. The law prohibits Oklahomans from buying more than three packages in 30 days.
"It's the most effective law I've ever seen," Hutchinson said. "If we could get Missouri and Arkansas and Texas and Kansas to do this, it's going to be even better for this part of the state."
In fact, Missouri is among 29 states considering legislation modeled after Oklahoma's law.
Steps are being taken at the federal level as well. Last week, two U.S. senators — Missouri Republican Jim Talent and California Democrat Dianne Feinstein — introduced a bipartisan bill that would restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine products nationwide.
Police and prosecutors in Oklahoma say the new law is hitting meth cooks where it hurts. Without ephedrine extracted from the pseudoephedrine pills, they can't make the highly addictive stimulant.
"It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do," said Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control. "It's cutting off their supply. A lot of them are having to go to other states to get it."
Without a similar law, Missouri — the nation's leader in meth lab seizures for the past three years — runs the risk of becoming a haven for Oklahoma's meth cooks, said Lt. Tim Rousset with the Missouri Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control in Springfield.
"What Oklahoma did for us is drive home what the effect of that law would be," Rousset said. "It's obvious it's hurting (meth makers) in Oklahoma, and we'd like to hurt them here."
According to the state Bureau of Narcotics, Oklahoma law-enforcement agencies seized 105 meth labs in March, the month before the law took effect. Fifty-seven labs were busted in April and 46 in May.
In less than a year, the average number of meth labs seized each month has fallen from 120 to 56, Woodward said.
"This is the first time in 10 years we've seen a drop," he said. "The only thing that has changed is this law."
Brutal slayings
Alan Loyd, a narcotics investigator with the Sequoyah County Sheriff's Department in eastern Oklahoma, offers few words when asked about Sept. 24, 1999, the night a drug raid went wrong.
That night, Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper David "Rocky" Eales was shot and killed as authorities converged on a small wood-frame house northwest of Sallisaw, the county seat.
Eales is one of three state troopers whose name is attached to Oklahoma's new law. All three died in the line of duty while responding to meth-related incidents.
But it was trooper Nikky Green's videotaped execution in December 2003 that galvanized support for the bill.
The father of two was shot in the head with his own handgun after scuffling with a former firefighter and emergency medical technician who police believe was cooking meth in the trunk of his car.
Green's dashboard-mounted camera captured the trooper begging for his life before he was silenced by gunshots.
His name was added to the Oklahoma law in part because another provision — one that allows judges to deny bond to suspected meth cooks — might have saved the trooper's life, if the law had been in effect at the time.
"Nik Green just happened to become a tragic example of what we had been arguing for years ... that these meth cooks are addicts," said the narcotics bureau's Woodward.
Many are so addicted, he said, that they often cook up a batch of meth within hours of posting bail.
Loyd is well-acquainted with meth's deadly and disheartening legacy. He thinks about turning in his badge every day.
"In my line of work, you just don't see anything positive," he said. "I don't know what the answer is. I do know that not doing anything is not the answer."
Loyd has seen meth cooks as young as 9 and heard pregnant mothers complain that the babies in their wombs kick too much when they inject a dose of the toxic cocktail.
He has seen a severely burned meth cook stagger away from a fiery lab explosion in a daze, his tattered clothes reminiscent of a mummy.
"This guy, he was just one big blister," Loyd recalled. "His skin was hangin' off him."
At another bust, Loyd encountered a man sitting on his kitchen floor, attempting to exorcise evil spirits from his wife's dead body with a Bible. Thinking she was possessed, the man shot his wife once in the forehead and four times in the back. The couple's son was playing outside on the porch when Loyd arrived.
"I've got enough ghosts to last me a lifetime," he said.
Oklahoma's law
Oklahoma's law took effect April 6, 2004, just three months after trooper Green's death.
Convenience stores and supermarkets were given 30 days to drop pseudoephedrine pills from their shelves. Pharmacies had 60 days to isolate the pills and set up a logging procedure.
The restrictions have taken some getting used to, but were necessary to disrupt the proliferation of meth labs, said pharmacist Dee Ridgeway at Ken's Pharmacy in Tulsa.
"It was out of control," Ridgeway said.
Unfortunately, he added, over-the-counter cold medicine such as Sudafed remains a "wonderful drug for congestion" used by many people for legitimate reasons.
"Our customers were a little frustrated at first," Ridgeway said. "Now, they have to sign a register to get it. ... But I do think people appreciate the fact that the meth lab numbers are going down in Oklahoma."
At the Sallisaw Pharmacy, pharmacist Jim Risley is pleased that meth cooks and addicts aren't coming by anymore.
"You can recognize them when they walk through the door," he said. "Most of these guys have lost teeth. They have sores on them. But they've about stopped coming in."
The new law has changed the way both pharmacies do business, but Ridgeway said the transition was actually "pretty easy."
Making sure pseudoephedrine pills aren't mistakenly placed on the shelves calls for vigilant employees, he said. Especially since inspectors check for compliance three or four times a year.
Ensuring that log entries don't violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was also a bit tricky, said Risley, who uses an alphabetical book to protect each patient's privacy.
Ridgeway said some customers have started buying gelcaps to avoid the hassle, but many still prefer the old standby for obvious reasons.
"The pills are cheap," he said. "The gelcaps are expensive."
Oklahoma's new law doesn't regulate the sale of liquid medicine or gelcaps containing pseudoephedrine. Neither form can be used to manufacture meth because they can't be easily dissolved like starch-based pills.
Making a dent
Muskogee County Sheriff Charles Pearson doesn't hide his enthusiasm about Oklahoma's new law.
Just a year ago, Pearson's undersheriffs were swamped with meth-related warrants, sometimes serving five a week. Now, they're down to one or two a week, and a whole month recently came and went without a lab bust. That's nothing short of miraculous, said Pearson, who was elected sheriff after promising to crack down on the manufacturing of dangerous drugs.
"Used to, it wasn't hard to find a meth lab around here," said Pearson. "But it's getting that way now. It's not dropping in our laps like it was."
Pearson, like many law-enforcement veterans, admits he underestimated meth's deadly and pervasive potential as a narcotics officer in the early '90s. "Now we're catching up," he said.
The sheriff says it's no coincidence that violent crime, burglaries and sexual abuse have also declined in his county since Oklahoma clamped down on the sale of pseudoephedrine pills.
Muskogee County is now seeing a resurgence of purer, crystallized meth, or ice, and the club drug Ecstasy. To Pearson, though, that's easier to deal with than the "mom-and-pop" meth labs that endanger children as well as his officers. The long-term health effects of being in and around meth labs remain to be seen, the sheriff noted.
Oklahoma's drop in meth labs also translates to dollars and cents, said Woodward with the Bureau of Narcotics.
The state will save almost $2 million in hazardous-waste removal fees alone this year, and fewer labs mean more time for law enforcement to concentrate on larger drug-trafficking rings, he said.
Still, Pearson favors a federal law restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine. In the meantime, he thinks every state should move forward with legislation emulating Oklahoma's law.
"They don't have it now, but they will," Pearson warned.
"I don't know why any other state would debate not doing this. Lawmakers — it's their responsibility to protect their constituents. Bottom line. That's all there is to it."
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Missouri is among 29 states considering a law like Oklahoma's to severely limit sales of key ingredient.
Jan 30/2005
By Matt Wagner and James Goodwin
News-Leader Staff
Juston Hutchinson has been scarred by methamphetamine.
In 1994, the broad-shouldered undersheriff took a 16-gauge shotgun blast to the chest while storming a meth house in Muskogee County, Okla., southeast of Tulsa.
Though a Kevlar vest absorbed much of the impact, a quarter-size scar reminds him of a time when meth makers seemed to have the upper hand in Muskogee County.
Now, though, officers are gaining ground. In April, Oklahoma Gov. Brad Henry signed a law severely restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine — a nasal decongestant in over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine that is needed to create meth.
Starch-based pseudoephedrine pills were immediately tucked securely behind pharmacy counters. Pharmacists now ask customers for photo identification and make them sign a written log verifying the number of pills purchased. The law prohibits Oklahomans from buying more than three packages in 30 days.
"It's the most effective law I've ever seen," Hutchinson said. "If we could get Missouri and Arkansas and Texas and Kansas to do this, it's going to be even better for this part of the state."
In fact, Missouri is among 29 states considering legislation modeled after Oklahoma's law.
Steps are being taken at the federal level as well. Last week, two U.S. senators — Missouri Republican Jim Talent and California Democrat Dianne Feinstein — introduced a bipartisan bill that would restrict the sale of pseudoephedrine products nationwide.
Police and prosecutors in Oklahoma say the new law is hitting meth cooks where it hurts. Without ephedrine extracted from the pseudoephedrine pills, they can't make the highly addictive stimulant.
"It's doing exactly what it's supposed to do," said Mark Woodward, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control. "It's cutting off their supply. A lot of them are having to go to other states to get it."
Without a similar law, Missouri — the nation's leader in meth lab seizures for the past three years — runs the risk of becoming a haven for Oklahoma's meth cooks, said Lt. Tim Rousset with the Missouri Highway Patrol's Division of Drug and Crime Control in Springfield.
"What Oklahoma did for us is drive home what the effect of that law would be," Rousset said. "It's obvious it's hurting (meth makers) in Oklahoma, and we'd like to hurt them here."
According to the state Bureau of Narcotics, Oklahoma law-enforcement agencies seized 105 meth labs in March, the month before the law took effect. Fifty-seven labs were busted in April and 46 in May.
In less than a year, the average number of meth labs seized each month has fallen from 120 to 56, Woodward said.
"This is the first time in 10 years we've seen a drop," he said. "The only thing that has changed is this law."
Brutal slayings
Alan Loyd, a narcotics investigator with the Sequoyah County Sheriff's Department in eastern Oklahoma, offers few words when asked about Sept. 24, 1999, the night a drug raid went wrong.
That night, Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper David "Rocky" Eales was shot and killed as authorities converged on a small wood-frame house northwest of Sallisaw, the county seat.
Eales is one of three state troopers whose name is attached to Oklahoma's new law. All three died in the line of duty while responding to meth-related incidents.
But it was trooper Nikky Green's videotaped execution in December 2003 that galvanized support for the bill.
The father of two was shot in the head with his own handgun after scuffling with a former firefighter and emergency medical technician who police believe was cooking meth in the trunk of his car.
Green's dashboard-mounted camera captured the trooper begging for his life before he was silenced by gunshots.
His name was added to the Oklahoma law in part because another provision — one that allows judges to deny bond to suspected meth cooks — might have saved the trooper's life, if the law had been in effect at the time.
"Nik Green just happened to become a tragic example of what we had been arguing for years ... that these meth cooks are addicts," said the narcotics bureau's Woodward.
Many are so addicted, he said, that they often cook up a batch of meth within hours of posting bail.
Loyd is well-acquainted with meth's deadly and disheartening legacy. He thinks about turning in his badge every day.
"In my line of work, you just don't see anything positive," he said. "I don't know what the answer is. I do know that not doing anything is not the answer."
Loyd has seen meth cooks as young as 9 and heard pregnant mothers complain that the babies in their wombs kick too much when they inject a dose of the toxic cocktail.
He has seen a severely burned meth cook stagger away from a fiery lab explosion in a daze, his tattered clothes reminiscent of a mummy.
"This guy, he was just one big blister," Loyd recalled. "His skin was hangin' off him."
At another bust, Loyd encountered a man sitting on his kitchen floor, attempting to exorcise evil spirits from his wife's dead body with a Bible. Thinking she was possessed, the man shot his wife once in the forehead and four times in the back. The couple's son was playing outside on the porch when Loyd arrived.
"I've got enough ghosts to last me a lifetime," he said.
Oklahoma's law
Oklahoma's law took effect April 6, 2004, just three months after trooper Green's death.
Convenience stores and supermarkets were given 30 days to drop pseudoephedrine pills from their shelves. Pharmacies had 60 days to isolate the pills and set up a logging procedure.
The restrictions have taken some getting used to, but were necessary to disrupt the proliferation of meth labs, said pharmacist Dee Ridgeway at Ken's Pharmacy in Tulsa.
"It was out of control," Ridgeway said.
Unfortunately, he added, over-the-counter cold medicine such as Sudafed remains a "wonderful drug for congestion" used by many people for legitimate reasons.
"Our customers were a little frustrated at first," Ridgeway said. "Now, they have to sign a register to get it. ... But I do think people appreciate the fact that the meth lab numbers are going down in Oklahoma."
At the Sallisaw Pharmacy, pharmacist Jim Risley is pleased that meth cooks and addicts aren't coming by anymore.
"You can recognize them when they walk through the door," he said. "Most of these guys have lost teeth. They have sores on them. But they've about stopped coming in."
The new law has changed the way both pharmacies do business, but Ridgeway said the transition was actually "pretty easy."
Making sure pseudoephedrine pills aren't mistakenly placed on the shelves calls for vigilant employees, he said. Especially since inspectors check for compliance three or four times a year.
Ensuring that log entries don't violate the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, or HIPAA, was also a bit tricky, said Risley, who uses an alphabetical book to protect each patient's privacy.
Ridgeway said some customers have started buying gelcaps to avoid the hassle, but many still prefer the old standby for obvious reasons.
"The pills are cheap," he said. "The gelcaps are expensive."
Oklahoma's new law doesn't regulate the sale of liquid medicine or gelcaps containing pseudoephedrine. Neither form can be used to manufacture meth because they can't be easily dissolved like starch-based pills.
Making a dent
Muskogee County Sheriff Charles Pearson doesn't hide his enthusiasm about Oklahoma's new law.
Just a year ago, Pearson's undersheriffs were swamped with meth-related warrants, sometimes serving five a week. Now, they're down to one or two a week, and a whole month recently came and went without a lab bust. That's nothing short of miraculous, said Pearson, who was elected sheriff after promising to crack down on the manufacturing of dangerous drugs.
"Used to, it wasn't hard to find a meth lab around here," said Pearson. "But it's getting that way now. It's not dropping in our laps like it was."
Pearson, like many law-enforcement veterans, admits he underestimated meth's deadly and pervasive potential as a narcotics officer in the early '90s. "Now we're catching up," he said.
The sheriff says it's no coincidence that violent crime, burglaries and sexual abuse have also declined in his county since Oklahoma clamped down on the sale of pseudoephedrine pills.
Muskogee County is now seeing a resurgence of purer, crystallized meth, or ice, and the club drug Ecstasy. To Pearson, though, that's easier to deal with than the "mom-and-pop" meth labs that endanger children as well as his officers. The long-term health effects of being in and around meth labs remain to be seen, the sheriff noted.
Oklahoma's drop in meth labs also translates to dollars and cents, said Woodward with the Bureau of Narcotics.
The state will save almost $2 million in hazardous-waste removal fees alone this year, and fewer labs mean more time for law enforcement to concentrate on larger drug-trafficking rings, he said.
Still, Pearson favors a federal law restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine. In the meantime, he thinks every state should move forward with legislation emulating Oklahoma's law.
"They don't have it now, but they will," Pearson warned.
"I don't know why any other state would debate not doing this. Lawmakers — it's their responsibility to protect their constituents. Bottom line. That's all there is to it."
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