By Rebecca Feldhaus
http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/wkms/local-wkms-934729.mp3
Murray, KY – The tinny sound of automatic doors accompanies a trip to pick up medicine at a local pharmacy chain. Cold and flu season is here accompanied by commercials from big-name pharmacies encouraging the public to stock up on medicine even before falling ill. One decongestant drug on many lists is Sudafed. Next year, however, the din of automatic doors could be replaced with the subtle flutter of magazine pages in a doctor's waiting room.
Many law enforcement offices and medical organizations across the Commonwealth hope to require a prescription to access any drug containing pseudoephedrine or PSE. That's one of the ingredients used for meth making. This popular notion, however, does have its opponents. Daviess County Sheriff Keith Cain is one of them. Cain prefers a current system already in place in the Commonwealth.
"Electronic tracking, or the MethCheck system, blocks excessive sales of pseudoephedrine at the point of sale. In other words it stops it from ever going out the door."
MethCheck is a Kentucky-run on-line system that tallies the amount of PSE purchased, and the buyer's name and address. Most importantly, it alerts pharmacists when a consumer has surpassed their daily limit of 3.6 grams or monthly limit of 9 grams.
The system is set up to be straightforward, if it weren't for the smurfs. This is the police slang term for someone who entices or pays their friends, family or even strangers to buy a PSE-based drug for them, so not to raise suspicion. Smurfs are a big part of the argument for the pro-prescription side. Louisville Metro Narcotics Officer Sergeant Stanley Salyards explains.
"The law is useless. It sounds really good unless you understand how they're getting around the electronic tracking right now, by smurfing and fake ID's."
Salyards is staunchly in favor of scheduling any drug containing PSE. Scheduling goes one step further than requiring a prescription for PSE. Drugs that are scheduled are those that require a prescription and can be found commonly sold through illegal dealers. Scheduled drugs come with their own tracking device. It's called the KASPER system. The Kentucky All Schedule Prescription Electronic Reporting system tracks scheduled drugs similar to Methcheck.
Sheriff Cain says the MethCheck System helps police locate and bring in meth cookers and users. Numbers from the El Paso Intelligence Center show Kentucky's rate of Meth incidents has jumped from 294 in 2007, to 810 so far this year. Cain defends the increase.
"Meth lab numbers in Kentucky are up, because of law enforcement's ability to locate these labs. And our ability to locate these labs is a direct result of the data we garner from the MethCheck system. You turn the switch off that system, and law enforcement will regress to where we were ten years ago, operating in the dark and in the blind."
Sergeant Salyards says the numbers proves tracking systems like MethCheck, which started in Kentucky in 2008, aren't working. He has a different idea of success.
"I don't want to track pseudoephedrine, I don't want to find more methlabs by tracking the sale, I want significantly reduce meth labs and the danger it presents to law enforcement, and to the public, and to the cost we are spending to clean this up."
But scheduling a commonly used cold remedy might upset those who rely on the medicine for its intended use for a couple of reasons including increased cost like to see a doctor to get the prescription. Louisville-based Doctor of Internal Medicine Praveen Arla points to the numerous other medicines, not containing PSE, that work in the same fashion. He says his prescriptions would go further to combat meth.
"If I know someone needs it, I actually don't give them the pure PSE, I give them combination, which is much harder to break apart into just methamphetamine. People go to the pharmacy to get the pure PSE form."
Those against scheduling PSE are seemingly in the minority. Among those supporting organizations are the Kentucky Medical Association, Kentucky Commonwealth Attorney Association and Kentucky State Police. In the western part of the state, Director of the Pennyrile Narcotics task force Lori Blakely says she's not quite sure.
"It maybe short-term answer to the problem, but you know we already have a problem with prescription drugs, so I think even if you schedule it, they're still going to find a way around it eventually. Sadly it seems like it's going to be an on-going battle."
Though legislation proposing this idea failed in last year's general session, both sides expect another big push this year.
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Oregon Alliance for Drug Endangered Children