Improved Clinch

Mething With You

So, you walk into your local CVS drugstore to purchase some cold medicine, say a box of Sudafed, and the clerk ringing up your purchase requests to see your ID card, because, ya know, the war on drugs, and specifically crystal meth, mandates that the box of Sudafed cannot be sold to you unless you’re at least 18 years old, and, the state wants to track how much Sudafed you actually purchase, just in case you may be taking your Sudafed home and cooking it up, like Mickey Rourke’s character, The Cook, in the movie Spun.

You’re not feeling real well, because of your cold, and you find this a bit intrusive, and think about giving the poor CVS clerk a piece of your mind regarding this stupid intrusion, while the clerk dutifully swipes your ID with its handy magnetic strip into the CVS computer system, but you don’t, because you don’t feel up to it, so you pay for your purchase and head home, doctor yourself up and throw yourself back down on the couch.

After lying on the couch for 15 minutes or so, you’re starting to feel a bit of relief from your congestion, thanks to those good ol’ Sudafed, and you’re just about to doze off, and, bam, your door is broken down and the local swat team cops are pounding round your house searching for the meth lab that isn’t there.

Do you think that this could not happen? Then read this.

Detective Brian Lewis returns to his desk after lunch, scanning e-mails he missed.

One catches his eye: It says a suspected member of a methamphetamine ring bought a box of Sudafed at 1:34 p.m. at a CVS pharmacy.

Minutes later, Lewis is in his truck, circling the parking lot, searching for the woman.

And this.

Tracking systems like the one in use in Kentucky, MethCheck, automatically collect the buyer’s name, address and age with a swipe of a driver’s license or state-issued ID card.

Then the system notifies detectives via e-mail when a customer has exceeded the purchase limit. It also allows law enforcement to quickly spot suspicious patterns — for example, someone who might be trying to skirt the purchase limits by going from pharmacy to pharmacy and buying a few packages at a time.

An updated version of MethCheck eventually will enable law enforcement to track purchases by neighborhood or street. That could help detectives spot instances in which a meth chemist enlists others in the neighborhood to buy pseudoephedrine for him, Lewis said.

It’ll happen, just you watch.

Buying cold meds? Meth cops may get e-mail

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 07/19 at 05:47 AM