Meth labs on rise again in Kansas

Meth labs on rise again in Kansas
BY STAN FINGER
The Wichita Eagle

Meth labs are on the rise again throughout Kansas, state law
enforcement officials said Wednesday, making this week's launch of a
Web-based pharmacy monitoring program all the more vital.

An estimated 128 pharmacies in 62 counties are taking part in
MethShield, a 12-month pilot program that offers real-time reports on
the sale of medications that can be used to make meth.

"Meth continues to just be a terrible problem for Kansas," said Jeff
Brandau, a special agent in charge for the Kansas Bureau of
Investigation. "We are just inundated."

The KBI uncovered 97 meth labs through July, matching the total for
all of last year. While that is well below the totals of a few years
ago, Brandau said it reflects a troubling turnaround.

"It's a progression of people learning how to bypass the safeguards we
have put in place" through laws limiting how much pseudoephedrine can
be bought within a day or a month, Brandau said.

Kansas uses a written logbook system to track those sales, which does
not allow for sharing real-time information between pharmacists and
law enforcement, officials said.

"We don't even know if they went across the street or on down the
road" to buy more pseudoephedrine, said Mike Dandurand, owner of
Dandurand's Piccadilly Pharmacy, 7732 E. Central. "That's going to
change."

If a customer has bought medication containing pseudoephedrine at one
pharmacy and then tries to buy more elsewhere, MethShield will alert
the second pharmacy.

If a purchase exceeds the legal limit, the pharmacist can terminate
the transaction, Brandau said.

KBI agents will also monitor those sales, Brandau said.

MethShield is the U.S. version of a nationwide electronic log system
developed in Australia. The number of meth labs in the Australian
state of Queensland -- roughly twice the size of Texas, with a
population of 4.2 million -- fell 37 percent in the first year the
electronic system was deployed there, said Shaun Singleton, the
company's chief executive officer.

The meth problem in the Midwest U.S. mirrored what was happening in
Queensland, Singleton said, so he came to the Midwest to demonstrate
the system's value.

"Kansas is by far the most proactive state in dealing with meth" in
the Midwest, he said, so MethShield is paying for the installation and
operation of the pilot program.

Should the Kansas Legislature choose to continue using the system,
Brandau said, it will need to find funding for it.

No chains are among the 128 pharmacies participating in the pilot
project. Mike Coast, chairman of the Meth Precursor Task Force for the
Kansas Board of Pharmacy, said he hopes to change that.

Walgreens has used an internal pseudoephedrine log for the past two
years, company spokeswoman Carol Hively said.

"Our log prevents customers from accidentally or intentionally buying
more than the legal limit, and the system is fully integrated
chainwide," Hively said in an e-mail. "If you go to a Walgreens in
Kansas and buy the limit, you would not be successful in crossing the
state line and buying more than allowed at another Walgreens."

The system does not receive information about pseudoephedrine bought
at pharmacies outside the chain, she said.