The meth users are winning, police say.

They’ve beaten new restrictions on how much pseudoephedrine — a main ingredient in methamphetamine — they’re allowed to buy, despite a computer system designed to stop bulk sales. A bill in the legislature that would have made pseudoephedrine a prescription-only drug was killed yet again for another year. And funding to clean up meth labs across the state is set to run out at the end of this year.

“We’re in trouble in Tennessee, absolutely,” said Williamson County Sheriff Jeff Long, a member of the Tennessee Public Safety Coalition, which has lobbied for stricter meth laws.

“The figures now show that, according to the first three months of this year, Tennessee is No. 1 in the nation (for meth use),” Long said.

A key defeat for law enforcement came in a legislative hearing last week when a bill to make pseudoephedrine prescription-only was killed until 2014.

State Rep. Tony Shipley, chairman of the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee, said there was not enough support for the measure, particularly because the law could have made it more inconvenient for law-abiding citizens.

“It’s pretty much done. It just doesn’t have a place to go; there’s just not any interest amongst the members,” said Shipley, a Kingsport Republican. “We may never get to a full prescription, because I don’t think a full prescription is necessary. I don’t think 85 percent of Tennesseans are abusing this.”

That defeat has law enforcement regrouping to cope with the reality of what Tennessee is facing. Not only is the meth problem growing, it’s also spreading.

“This used to be a regional problem, it started in the upper east and southeast and now has moved across the state, unfortunately,” Long said. “Shelby County’s No. 2 now, who used to not report any labs.”
Limits do little

Since 2005, Tennessee has gradually made it harder to buy large quantities of pseudoephedrine. Today, a consumer can purchase up to 3.6 grams at a time and up to 9 grams per month — about 120 pills per purchase or 300 pills per month, assuming a typical 30 mg dose of pseudoephedrine.

The consumer’s driver’s license information is put into a computer at the time of sale, which is supposed to block purchases if the buyer exceeds either of those limits.

That new computer system, called NPLEx, was put into place last year. The plan was reluctantly supported by law enforcement, who saw that the system had failed to stem meth in other states.

As predicted, it failed to make a dent in 2012. A state audit released in January concluded, “Methamphetamine lab incidents since the implementation of NPLEx in January 2012 have not decreased substantially and remain at high levels.”

Tommy Farmer, director of the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation’s Methamphetamine and Pharmaceutical Task Force, said meth users are adept at circumventing limits on pseudoephedrine sales through a practice known as “smurfing.” Smurfing entails recruiting multiple buyers to purchase the legal limit of pseudoephedrine for the meth cook to use.

Smurfers who don’t want to be caught often use a fake driver’s licenses to hide their identities.

“They’re going in and recruiting homeless, they’re recruiting unwitting elderly, they’re recruiting college kids,” Farmer said.

“We’ve got a whole new cottage industry of smurfers.”

Smurfers are usually paid $30 to $100.

A 2011 sting operation in Nashville netted nearly 40 suspected smurfers.
Scripts effective

Meth investigators here and in other states have lobbied to make pseudoephedrine prescription only. Today, only two states, Oregon and Mississippi, require a prescription for all pseudoephedrine purchases. Missouri passed a law last year allowing each jurisdiction to determine whether to require a prescription for pseudoephedrine.

Results in those states have been successful, according to a U.S. Government Accountability Office report released in January.

“The implementation of prescription-only laws by Oregon and Mississippi was followed by declines in lab incidents,” the audit says. “Law enforcement officials in Oregon and Mississippi attribute this reduction in large part to the prescription-only approach.”

Making those changes can be difficult. Pharmaceutical and consumer health groups have lobbied heavily to defeat prescription-only measures, arguing that they place an undue burden on consumers who might suffer from allergies. Shipley, the Kingsport legislator, said that the legislature takes those concerns seriously.

“The bottom line is it’s a careful balance between the rights of the citizens to have access to use and what is a responsible quantity to allow on the street,” he said.

Long said the prescription-only defeat in the legislature will hurt law enforcement’s attempts to curb the drug abuse.

“We’re sadly disappointed because we know that is a way to combat the methamphetamine production,” Long said. “The states that have passed the law have reduced their labs by 80 percent or more.”

As an alternative, Shipley has filed a bill that would further limit quantities of pseudoephedrine that can be sold to consumers to 7.2 grams per month or about 240 pills. The bill remains alive and moving through legislative committees.
Toxic mess

Even bigger problems loom ahead as meth cleanup funding — about $750,000 in state money — is set to run out at the end of this year. Funding has been a problem the past few years after the federal government zeroed-out most meth cleanup money, leaving states left to fend for themselves.

The process of making meth leaves a potentially explosive toxic waste behind that requires specialized cleanup.

“So at the end of this year there won’t be any money for cleanups, training, buying the equipment or any of that,” Long said. “It will be a local problem that every locale will have to worry about, cleaning up their own meth labs.”

But Long said that their fight isn’t over. They plan to continue to lobby for prescription-only laws, even if they have to adopt a city-by-city approach like Missouri’s.

“What other crime in Tennessee would cost the state of Tennessee and the citizens $1.6 billion and not be addressed?” he said. “We will be back in January again.”