CITY'S METH LAW GETTING WIDESPREAD ATTENTION

As retailers here start following Cookeville's new
anti-methamphetamine regulations, the rest of the state and country
are hearing about the City Council's ground-breaking effort to control
the widely-abused, home-made drug. City Councilman Ricky Shelton,
prime sponsor of the ordinance, has been contacted by a reporter from
USA Today and a lobbyist from the Tennessee Retailers Association
about the law that requires retailers to restrict sales of and public
access to products containing ephedrine and other chemicals that go
into the make-up of "meth."

"The reporter from USA Today had heard that we'd done this, maybe from
Nashville Channel 5 coverage," Shelton said.

"He wanted to know what it was about and was the meth problem that
bad. He thought it was just a West Coast problem."

Shelton worked with City Attorney Mike O'Mara as well as with
authorities from the pharmaceutical industry and law enforcement to
create a city ordinance that will help Cookeville police stave off the
growing meth problem here and in surrounding areas.

He and other City Council members had been hoping that the state would
enact a law this past spring to help get rid of the meth problem. But
the state House of Representatives set aside what would have been a
similar state bill in order to 'study' it further.

That bill was sponsored by State Sen. Charlotte Burks of Monterey and
easily passed in the Senate, but the postponement of passage in the
House left communities throughout the state with little legal clout to
combat meth production.

"We wanted the language in the ordinance to fit Cookeville's
circumstances, but also be applicable to other communities. We wanted
it to spread out through all the communities in the state and
accomplish what Charlotte Burks started," said Councilman Shelton.

Since its June 5th approval by the City Council, copies of the
ordinance have been sent to a number of police departments across the
state.

John Rust of the Upper Cumberland Community Services Agency, who
serves as coordinator of the newly-formed Putnam County Anti-Drug and
Violence Coalition, has sent copies to all the city governments and
heads of city governments in the surrounding 14 counties in Middle
Tennessee.

"If this can happen in all the cities and towns in the Upper
Cumberland, then the people cooking up these drugs would have to leave
our region," Rust told the Herald-Citizen.

"We're looking for ways to send the ordinance to the entire
state."

For the ordinance to really prove effective, it requires the
cooperation of the retailers who sell the over-the-counter cold and
allergy medications, pharmaceutical products and even chemicals used
in car maintenance, like starter fuel and radiator fluid, that can be
used to make meth.

At the first meeting to organize the retailers, 22 business
representatives here, from mom-and-pop convenience stores to national
grocery and pharmacy chains, attended.

Officer Myke Green of the Cookeville Police Dept. was assigned to work
with all the retailers in Cookeville.

"I'm the point man, I guess," he told the Herald-Citizen. "I'm in
charge of seeing the ordinances are being applied.

"We've had excellent response from the retailers. A lot say they don't
want to carry the products any more anyway. And a lot say when their
current supply runs out, they won't be ordering any more.

"I'd say that between 80 and 90 percent have been very cooperative and
all the retailers have been compliant."

Retailers must now check the ID of anyone purchasing products
containing ephedrine, pseudoephedrine or phenylpropanolamine.
Purchasers must sign a register when they buy these products. But the
ordinance does not apply to licensed pharmacists making a good faith
determination that the purchase is for a legitimate medical purposes.

In addition, these products cannot be displayed on consumer-reachable
shelving but must be displayed behind the counter.

And purchasers can no longer buy these items in bulk.

Retailers who disregard the ordinance can be fined up to $50 a day for
infractions.

Green is in the process of having decals and posters printed up for
display on shop windows that indicate that the retailer is part of the
'war on methamphetamine.'

For Green, this job is a calling.

"Methamphetamine is the real deal. You get tangled up in it and you're
going to die," he said.

"It's not like marijuana, which is equally illegal but usually makes
its users more passive. I've never talked to an officer who was
attacked by anyone arrested for marijuana use. But a meth user is a
crazed tiger. And because paranoia is one of the results of
methamphetamine, users routinely arm themselves.

"When crack cocaine became popular, they told us that it was
considered to be the drug that would result in the downfall of
humanity. But meth usage is even more addictive than crack. Most
people get addicted after one use.

"We hope this is one way we can begin to get rid of it in Cookeville,"
Rust said.

He thinks the grass roots approach to drug-law enforcement may
encourage the state House of Representatives to rethink their
postponement of Burks's state-wide law.

"This is a back door way to get the legislature to pay attention to
what is quickly becoming a major state-wide problem."