MethShield™

MethShield expands into second state

After a highly successful 12 month pilot in 72 West Kansas Counties, pseudoephedrine tracking system MethShield has now expanded into Jackson County, Missouri.

 

Working with the Jackson County Sheriffs Dept and other local Law Enforcement agencies MethShield hopes to replicate the same level of success as those achieved in Kansas.

 

MethShield represents an enormous opportunity for the community to actively take steps to reduce the amount of methamphetamine on the streets by cutting off a line of pseudoephedrine supply.

 

Extensive positive media support for the move suggests that the project is a welcome addition in the war against illicit drugs.

KMBC-TV reports on Methshield’s Jackson County launch

Summary

• KMBC-TV reported on Jackson County launch of MethShield
• MethShield ensures privacy of all information and at no point can a pharmacy view another pharmacy's sales or client information
• The old logbook system was ineffective as 'psuedo runners' would simply shop from multiple pharmacies to get bulk amounts of pseudoephedrine
  

A recent KMBC-TV report on Methshield’s move into Jackson County, Missouri, reported that some pharmacies are concerned that by utilising their system, they will enable their competitors to gain their sales and client information.

 

However this is not the case – the system, which has already been successfully deployed in Australia with significant achievements, maintains security and privacy of both consumer and pharmacy data. At no point do pharmacies have the opportunity view another pharmacy’s information. Equally, the system was recently recognised in the Australian Federal Privacy Awards for its careful and responsible management of client privacy. 

 

KMBC-TV also touch on some of the key benefits of moving to the web-based system. The previous system relied on each pharmacy maintaining a hard copy log book of pseudoephedrine transactions in their store. This process was inefficient as drug runners were able to circumvent the system by simply shopping from a number of pharmacies in one day.

 

MethShield allows pharmacies to log all pseudoephedrine transactions in a web-based, real time database. By working together in this way, it is possible to prevent ‘pseudo runners’ from obtaining bulk amounts of the drug.

 

The system provides the ideal solution as it enables legitimate customers to continue to access one of the most efficacious treatments for a number of common medical complaints such as colds and sinusitis while preventing drug runners from gaining bulk amounts of pseudoephedrine for diversion into methamphetamines.

Jackson County gets meth-fighting software

Summary

• MethShield launched in Jackson County Missouri
• Systems works to monitor pseudoephedrine sales to prevent their illicit diversion into mehtamphetamines
  

Jackson County law enforcement officials on Monday announced a program they touted as a major step toward quelling illegal meth production.

The program, known as MethShield, will be tested in Jackson County at no charge to taxpayers. It originated in Australia, where its promoters say it has reduced methamphetamine production by 37 percent.

The program will enable law enforcement to track, through a real-time computer system, the sale of over-the-counter medications used to manufacture meth.

At participating pharmacies, purchases of pseudoephedrine — a key ingredient in meth — will be tracked and limited.

Law enforcement officials also would be notified of people who were denied purchases.

County Executive Mike Sanders said the program “will help us track those who want to sell poison in our community.”

The program already is under way, he said.

Shaun Singleton, chief executive of MethShield, said not all the major pharmacy chains have agreed to participate. County officials declined to name which ones.

Not all pharmacies participated when the program began in Australia, Singleton said. But 98 percent of pharmacies have been won over, he said.

Singleton said a similar program already has begun in 72 western Kansas counties. In Jackson County, he said, his company hopes to demonstrate the program’s value in the hopes of winning future government funding.

Singleton said the purchase limits are high enough that people with chronic conditions can get the medication they need without hassle.

County officials said another hope for future funding is that pharmacies find a way to finance the program in order to avoid prescriptions being required for pseudoephedrine.

Singleton said the cost of such a program to a county the size of Jackson would be about $40,000.

Sourced from KansasCity.com

County unveils new meth-fighting tool

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