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Washington is the first and only municipality in Missouri to pass a local ordinance requiring a prescription to buy cold and allergy medicines containing pseudoephedrine.
Pseudoephedrine is the vital ingredient needed to make meth. Without it, other precursors are "irrelevant," according to Detective Sgt. Jason Grellner, head of the Franklin County Narcotics Enforcement Unit and a nationally recognized expert on methamphetamine.
Grellner said during the meeting, Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster indicated he plans to join with other law enforcement officials around Missouri and push for a statewide prescription law.
Grellner and others tried to get a bill passed in the last legislative session, but it was bottled up in committee and never reached the House or Senate floor.
"I was most impressed with Koster," said Grellner who also attended Tuesday's meeting. "He's with us.
"I'm excited to see an office of state government taking notice," Grellner said. "It's a great stride forward."
Grellner also said the consensus of about 30 people who participated in the discussion was that the "ultimate solution" is to make pseudoephedrine a prescription drug.
"Everybody there was very supportive of getting a prescription law passed," said Sheriff Gary Toelke who also participated in the session.
Grellner proposed the local ordinance approach to the situation after the failure of the state Legislature to act. He has addressed all the larger cities in Franklin County and urged them to pass ordinances, but so far only Washington has responded.
"I think the other cities need to step forward and pass these ordinances," Grellner said.
"In the two months since Washington passed its ordinance, the task force has had no calls for a meth lab or pill shoppers in the city," he remarked.
"But in Union, yesterday we had the third call in four weeks for people buying pills and shoplifting at Wal-Mart. We also arrested a guy with a shake and bake meth lab in a vehicle across the street from the police station.
"Exactly what we said would happen is happening," Grellner said. "They know they no longer can go to Washington to buy pills. Our calls for service have shifted to Union, the second largest city with the second most pharmacies.
"They're going in to other communities to buy pills and they're committing other crimes. These other cities will have to get on board to protect their citizens," Grellner said.
The drug czar was in St. Louis to announce a $9 million national ad campaign focusing on prevention and providing information to meth users and their families seeking recovery services. They target people ages 18-34, the age group most likely to use the drug.
"We need to work on both ends - enforcement and treatment," Stratman remarked. "If we can prevent labs, we can keep people from getting into meth."
Seek Opinion
The mayor said he asked Koster about when his office expects to render an opinion on Washington's anti-meth ordinance. The city requested the opinion through State Sen. John Griesheimer.
"He said we're No. 4 on the stack," Stratman remarked. "He said they would work on it as quickly as they can."
Union city officials have declined to act on an ordinance until getting an attorney general's opinion on the matter.
The pharmaceutical industry has proposed to pay the cost of an electronic monitoring system and data base to track people buying pseudoephrine at multiple pharmacies. That would be in place of a state prescription law.
Grellner said Kerlikowske noted that such a monitoring system would be a good investigative tool but he also felt that more research is needed on the Oregon solution.
Oregon, the only state that has a prescription law, saw a major drop in meth labs after it was passed.
After Washington passed the local ordinance, the American Civil Liberties Union urged its repeal under threat of a lawsuit.
Grellner noted that it's been two months and no suit has been filed.
On the western side of Missouri, the ACLU is fighting the idea of a statewide data base on pseudoephedrine purchases, while on the east side its opposing the prescription law.
"Does that mean the ACLU supports meth?" Grellner said.
Toelke said it will take a combined effort of enforcement, treatment and education to end the meth plague.
Kerlikowske chose St. Louis to kick off the national ad campaign because Missouri has ranked first in the nation for years in meth lab busts and seizures.
The ad blitz runs through November and will be run in newspapers, online and on TV, radio, billboards and even gas pumps.
It focuses on the 16 states with the worst meth problems - Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky and Nebraska in the Midwest and Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Nevada, Wyoming, Arizona and New Mexico in the West. Anti-meth radio and Web ads will run nationally.
