Summary
- MethShield
to be implemented in Jackson County, Missouri
- Program
provided at no charge to taxpayers for 12 months
- System
uses real time data tracking to prevent drug runners from purchasing bulk
amounts of pseudoephedrine from pharmacies
Jackson County has one more tool to fight methamphetamines, and this one
initially won’t cost taxpayers anything.
The county on Monday launched a program with an Australian company, MethShield,
designed to keep people from buying large amounts of pseudoephedrine, which is
used to make meth.
“It will provide real-time data to law enforcement about those who want to sell
poison in our communities,” County Executive Mike Sanders said.
State law limits the amount of pseudoephedrine a person can buy, and that
information has to be entered into a log. The problem, as county officials
describe it, is that those logs up to now have been on paper, so if a person is
going from pharmacy to pharmacy to skirt the limit, it’s next to impossible for
pharmacies or the police to know that.
The MethShield system is Web based. The information is entered, and if the
customer is over the limit for how much a person can buy, it gives the store a
message, and the clerk simply declines to ring up the sale. MethShield CEO
Shaun Singleton said 99 percent of customers – those who legitimately need
pseudoephedrine for cold and sinus relief – get it with no problem.
The system also alerts the police. Pharmacy hopping to buy lots of
pseudoephedrine is illegal, and real-time information should help police find
and arrest those who try.
County Prosecutor Jim Kanatzer said one of the main benefits of the system will
be in word getting around that it’s in place, which will “send a message to the
criminal element that this is not a place” to make meth.
“One of the key things that you have to do in law enforcement is deterence,”
Kanatzar said.
The system comes with a couple of caveats. One is that the county and local
police departments have hit meth labs aggressively for many years and chased
makers elsewhere. Most of the meth bought and sold in the county comes from
sources such as Mexico.
The second is that large phamacy chains – reluctant to share sales information
– haven’t signed up for the program. Sanders said the county won’t say who’s in
and who’s out, not wanting to give meth makers too much information.
“We have significant participation. ... It’s not 100 percent,” Sanders said,
adding that the county will press all sellers of pseudoephedrine to get on
board.
Singleton said the system can do its job without sharing the information that
pharmacies might be concerned about.
“We actually see ourselves as a clearinghouse,” he said.
He said the system has been in used in Queensland, Australia for four years and
has cut the meth problem. It’s also been in use in 72 counties in Kansas – the
western two-thirds of the state – for a year.
Singleton is making the system available to Jackson County free for a year, and
Sanders thanked him for putting money and his own time into the effort.
“Great program,” Sanders told county legislators. “No cost to the taxpayers.
Good tool for law enforcement.”
Sourced from Examiner.net
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