Pubdate: Mon, 14 Aug 2006 Source: Daily Chronicle (IL) Copyright: 2006 Daily Chronicle Contact: http://www.daily-chronicle.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3685 Note: Include daytime phone number Author: Matt Adrian Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine) STATE LOOKING AT CHANGING NEW METH LAW SPRINGFIELD - State law enforcement officials want to improve logbooks used to track cold medicine sales that could be connected to methamphetamine. While a new law appears to have made it more difficult for meth cooks to make the drug, as well as slowed the flow of addicts coming to Illinois from border states, Attorney General Lisa Madigan's office is looking to tweak the system. "We're making steady progress on a number of fronts," said Cara Smith, the attorney general's policy director. Since mid January, when the law went into effect, drugs containing pseudoephedrine, the main ingredient in methamphetamine, have been kept behind store counters or doled out by pharmacists. People buying these types of medications must also show photo identification and sign a logbook. However, the logs can't be searched in real time and there is no standard for how the records must be kept. "Sometimes the pharmacist would write out the information, which was really helpful because it was normally legible and kept in a consistent way," Smith said. "Other times, they would just turn the sheet over to the customer and have the customer scrawl it in and you couldn't read the stuff." To avoid detection and circumvent restrictions, meth makers often travel long distances to scrounge up the needed ingredients. Creating an electronic database could make it easier for law enforcement to build cases and track pseudoephedrine sales as they occur. Oklahoma has a tracking system that went online in August and Illinois officials are planning a visit to see how the system works. Smith said a working group of law enforcement and retailers are considering two types of tracking systems. One would alert store clerks and pharmacists when a purchaser had reached the monthly limit of pseudoephedrine-based drugs. The other type of system simply records the sale so police can use the information to build cases. State Rep. Chapin Rose, R-Mahomet, who has pushed several key pieces of legislation on methamphetamine, said he is leery of a database. "If you're not a meth addict why should you have your name in a database," Rose said. "The vast majority of people that buy Sudafed are not meth addicts. I don't like the idea of the government tracking my every move." The new law has made Illinois less attractive to out-of-state meth cooks, who were trying to avoid heavy restrictions in their home states, Smith said. "We're not seeing meth cooks come from other states because ...you have no better chance of getting your Sudafed here than you do in the state you are coming from," she said. Difficulty getting ingredients for making meth has also led to smaller batches of the drug being seized, Smith said. "The cooks can't get large quantities to make big batches like they could when the key ingredients were unrestricted," she said. However, compliance with the law by retailers remains an issue. In May, the state did a random compliance check of 462 stores of which 346 sold products containing psuedoephedrine. This included 271 pharmacies and 75 convenience stores. The check found that pharmacists tended to be in compliance, while convenience stores fell far behind. Overall, only 9 of the 75 convenience stores checked followed state law. Cook County scored a 49 percent compliance rate, the lowest in the state. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman