Meth ingredient tracking not helping police

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Updated: March 7, 2012 9:53AM

EVANSVILLE — A new computerized tracking system that has stopped sales of thousands of boxes of cold medicines used to make methamphetamine has not been much help to investigators so far, the commander of the Indiana State Police’s anti-methamphetamine unit said.

A law passed last year required all of Indiana’s pharmacies to begin using the system by Jan. 1 to track sales of pseudoephedrine, a common component in some cold and allergy pills. The system monitors who tries to buy more than the legal limit of 7.2 grams of drugs containing pseudoephedrine within a 30-day span.

Nearly 1,200 pharmacies across the state are using the tracking system, and it has led to stores stopping the sale of almost 12,000 boxes of the cold medicines, the Evansville Courier & Press reported.

State police are not getting data about those purchases in a useful format yet. They are working with the tracking system’s technology provider to fix the bugs, said police 1st Sgt. Niki Crawford, who leads the meth suppression section.

“We have not found it helpful. I haven’t received any records I can use from them yet,” Crawford said.

The meth makers seem to be responding to the new tracking system by casting wider nets, bringing in friends, family members and even high school students in need of quick cash as “smurfs” who buy $10 packs of medicine and sell them to meth makers for $50 to $75.

“The smurf groups are just getting bigger,” Crawford said. “I’m already getting reports from our investigators that the groups they’ve been watching for the last few months who were three to four people are now six to 10 people.”

Jim Acquisto, the spokesman for Appriss Inc., which operates the tracking system that is used in 17 states, said the criticism it has received so far in Indiana is unfair.

“If you’re buying cold medicine for somebody else and they’re going to make meth with it, that’s a crime, and those folks can be identified through the system,” he said. “More aggressive law enforcement agencies that use the system, that’s how they find the smurfers.”

Indiana legislators turned down an effort last year to require prescriptions to buy medicines containing pseudoephedrine.

A similar push seems to have stalled this year as bills seeking that requirement didn’t receive committee hearings by late January deadlines. Rep. Ron Bacon, R-Chandler, also filed a bill that would have allowed local ordinances requiring prescriptions.

Opponents maintain the change would cause law-abiding people to face the greater inconvenience and cost of doctor visits for common cold or allergy medicines.

“What’s happening is people don’t feel that their freedom to go out and buy pseudoephedrine should be tampered with,” Bacon said. “It’s a legal drug, and they feel they should have the right to get it, and I totally understand that. It’s why we’ve had a lot of pushback.”