Tracking system monitors cold medicine with pseudoephedrine
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The sale of cold medicine has changed over the years.
From being right on store shelves -- to needing to hand over your license to buy it.
Gary Boozer is the manager of the pharmacy inside the Pasco Yoke's.
He says sales used to be tracked just by hand as a way of knowing who was buying a prime ingredient for meth.
But then the system went high-tech -- and linked every pharmacy with every other one in the state.
‘Now the system is entirely online and it's instant from store to store,” said Boozer.
This means pharmacies can clearly see if someone has gone from store to store to buy hundreds of pills containing pseudoephedrine.
If you go over the limit -- the sale can be blocked.
Gary says he's only seen this happen one time.
But knows larger pharmacies see it frequently.
"There were certainly stores being used initially that were going to be problems - you know, that were going to pop up right away" added Boozer.
Benton County used to the third in the state for local meth production. However, those numbers have decreased. Why? Officials tell me it's partly due to this new tracking system.
By getting linked together, Benton County pharmacies stopped more than 300 sales of pseudoephedrine.
"To get that high a number to get blocked still means that the need or the want or the desire is still out there,” said Deputy Sheriff Joe Lusignan.
The numbers were far less in Franklin County and Walla Walla County. The changes over the years have results in a drop in local arrests for meth production.
"We're finding less dump sites than we did in the past," said Lusignan.
And the hope is that these changes will continue to drop those sites even more.
From being right on store shelves -- to needing to hand over your license to buy it.
Gary Boozer is the manager of the pharmacy inside the Pasco Yoke's.
He says sales used to be tracked just by hand as a way of knowing who was buying a prime ingredient for meth.
But then the system went high-tech -- and linked every pharmacy with every other one in the state.
‘Now the system is entirely online and it's instant from store to store,” said Boozer.
This means pharmacies can clearly see if someone has gone from store to store to buy hundreds of pills containing pseudoephedrine.
If you go over the limit -- the sale can be blocked.
Gary says he's only seen this happen one time.
But knows larger pharmacies see it frequently.
"There were certainly stores being used initially that were going to be problems - you know, that were going to pop up right away" added Boozer.
Benton County used to the third in the state for local meth production. However, those numbers have decreased. Why? Officials tell me it's partly due to this new tracking system.
By getting linked together, Benton County pharmacies stopped more than 300 sales of pseudoephedrine.
"To get that high a number to get blocked still means that the need or the want or the desire is still out there,” said Deputy Sheriff Joe Lusignan.
The numbers were far less in Franklin County and Walla Walla County. The changes over the years have results in a drop in local arrests for meth production.
"We're finding less dump sites than we did in the past," said Lusignan.
And the hope is that these changes will continue to drop those sites even more.
