113 fewer pounds of meth

CEDAR RAPIDS -Since every Iowa pharmacy last year began using a coordinated electronic system to track - and block - the sale of over-the-counter cold and allergy medicine that can be used to make methamphetamine, pharmacists have prevented more than 21,000 illegal purchases.

A new report out of the Governor's Office of Drug Control Policy indicates that Iowa's electronic Pseudoephedrine Tracking System, implemented in September 2010, has halted enough pseudoephedrine sales to make about 113 pounds of meth. That has thwarted as many as 450 meth labs in just the first year of the system's use, said Dale Woolery, the office's associate director.

“While we can't say with 100 (percent) certainty that every gram would have been used to make meth,” Woolery said, “we suspect the lion's share would have been.”

Iowa's electronic system is a part of the National Precursor Log Exchange, which tracks buyers and limits purchases to 360 milligrams a day and 7,500 milligrams in a 30-day period. Iowa is among 17 states now tracking pseudoephedrine sales through the national exchange.

All of Iowa's 642 pharmacies are participating in the program, which is improving on the effectiveness of a state law enacted in 2005 that required pharmacies to keep products containing pseudoephedrine behind the counter and to maintain a log of the purchases.

Before the electronic system, shoppers could circumvent the law by jumping from one store to the next and surpassing the legal purchasing limit. Now the pharmacies communicate with one another through the electronic database.

“All Iowa pharmacies, because they have this information, can flag when someone is trying to buy more than the legal limit and decline to sell to them,” Woolery said. “We are preventing and blocking sales.”

Between Sept. 1, 2010, and Aug. 31, Iowa's electronic system counted 880,475 successful sales of 914,812 boxes of medication containing pseudoephedrine, according to Woolery.

But even though the state's new tool makes it easier to block repeat pseudoephedrine buyers, methamphetamine use in Iowa remains strong, Woolery said. The number of labs reported this year is on pace to reach 343, nearly twice the recent low of 178 in 2007. But that's still nearly 80 percent below the 1,500 labs reported in 2004, before the state enacted its pseudoephedrine control law.

If pharmacists didn't have the new electronic tracking tool at their disposal, Woolery said, authorities believe methamphetamine-related numbers would be even higher this year.

“The tracking system is great,” said Sgt. Dave Dostal, who oversees the narcotics bureau for the Cedar Rapids Police Department. “It does exactly what it was designed to do. Anyone trying to purchase over the legal amount - they cannot. They're refused. They're blocked.”

Unfortunately, Dostal said, “If someone wants something bad enough, they're going to get it.”

In some cases, he said, the restrictions on pseudoephedrine purchases have prompted methamphetamine manufacturers to make smaller batches using portable labs such as soda bottles.

“When a law comes out, it puts up a wall for a short period of time, but a lot of people who are in this culture find a way around it,” he said. “They take what they can purchase and adapt and make lesser amounts.”

Still, Dostal said, the electronic database has made pharmacists aware of suspicious shoppers and led them on occasion to contact investigators, who then can review the electronic database to see who has been buying pseudoephedrine during a period of time and determine whether suspected violators are working together.

Otavio Hegouet, a pharmacist at the Hy-Vee store on Wilson Avenue SW in Cedar Rapids, said he has turned away a few would-be pseudoephedrine buyers because they had reached the limit, and he finds the new tracking system “very efficient” in catching violators and stopping them from illegally obtaining the drug.

“If they are abusing it, they will be tagged in the system, and we will be able to reject that sale,” Hegouet said. “Any other store they would go to for the same item would do the same thing.”