Tennessee’s war on meth

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Tennessee’s war on meth

Tennessee is supposedly dependent on its offender registry to stop addicts and drug dealers at the point of purchase for over-the-counter cold medicines, which are the most common building block for making methamphetamine. The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation now concedes that it soon will be No. 1 in the nation for meth-lab seizures.

Unless local court officers around Tennessee are committed to the job, the registry cannot be comprehensive. You can’t enter the name of a convicted meth offender unless you have documentation of past offenses. And only 65 of 95 counties have reported meth convictions to the TBI in 2013 so far — even though anecdotally, the bureau and other law enforcement authorities know that meth touches every county in Tennessee. Court officers complain the arrest information they’re given seldom narrows it down for them to determine meth was involved. And some people on the registry still manage to buy pseudo¬ephedrine by scamming the pharmacist with fraudulent IDs or other methods.

Most infuriating is that there is no unanimity of resolve on fighting meth. Pharmacists complain the registry is flawed, court officers complain about law enforcement, and the pharmaceutical industry is more worried about the effect on sales if the state were to make cold medicines prescription-only.

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