KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Jackson County officials have introduced a new system to track people who try to hop from pharmacy to pharmacy to buy large quantities of cold medicines to convert into meth.
You'll have to swipe your driver's license when you buy the medicines.
To track sales of cold medicines with pseudoephedrine, paper log books are being replaced by a real-time computer system. It links pharmacies and law enforcement and sends an alert when someone tried to buy too much.
"It gives us a law enforcement tool when currently don't have," Jackson County Executive Mike Sanders said at a news conference Monday at the Courthouse Annex in Independence.
The "MethShield" system is starting with 36 small, local pharmacies, but no national chains. MethShield's top executive admitted the flaw when I asked.
"No, none of the chains are currently taking part," said Shaun Singleton, MethShield CEO.
Then, Sanders quickly came back to the podium, "Actually, we're trying to keep it rather vague, I don't know what we can say who is or is not taking part."
"Mike... how can you track this without the big chains that have all the volume...." I tried to ask how the system could work very well without the big chain pharmacies, but Sanders interrupted to say: "We're not answering that question."
As authorities try to keep the heat on potential meth cookers, the crackdown on cold medicines hurts allergy sufferers. They may need a lot of over the counter pills to avoid costly prescriptions or care for a large family.
"Allergies tend to run in families and trying to buy all the medicine at once could raise a flag," said Dr. Jeff Wald of Kansas City Allergy and Asthma.
Right now it's planned as a one year pilot program, free of charge to Jackson County.
