Iowa now fourth state with pseudoephedrine tracking system to fight meth labs

On Sept. 1, Iowa joined a growing group of states using computer databases to track pseudoephedrine purchases. State officials say Iowa pharmacies have blocked thousands of purchases of the drug, which is the key ingredient in methamphetamine production, since the system went into effect, Tony Lews of the Des Moines Register reports. Kentucky, Louisiana and Illinois also track pseudoephedrine purchases, with Missouri, Florida, Alabama, South Carolina, Kansas and Washington working on development of similar systems.

The Iowa system "alerts pharmacists whenever someone tries to purchase the cold medicine after buying his or her daily or monthly limit elsewhere," Lews writes. "It also gives police a way to check whether suspected meth-makers have been buying large amounts of the ingredient." Gary Kendell, Iowa's director of drug-control policy, told Lews the system sent about 3,000 alerts for improper purchases to pharmacists in the past month while about 70,000 purchases were approved during the same period. Pharmacists aren't required to deny purchases based on a system alert, but they usually do, Kendell said.

Kevin Winker, assistant director of the Iowa Division of Narcotics Enforcement, told Lews his officers don't need subpoenas to search the system but are required to complete special training to use it. Randall Wilson, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa, called for a court order to authorize such searches so citizens won't have "law officers root(ing) through their medical affairs without a specific reason to suspect them of wrongdoing," Lews writes. "We don't need to be making criminals out of hypochondriacs," Wilson told Lews. (Read more)

Despite adoption of the system in Kentucky, doctors and some law-enforcement agencies in the state want a law requiring prescriptions for pseudoephedrine. The Appalachian area served by Operation UNITE was the pilot for the Kentucky program, but UNITE’s law-enforcement director says he has come to favor a prescription laws because the reporting system can be gamed by multiple purchasers paid by a meth producer, The Courier-Journal reports.