Lisa Trigg
The Tribune-Star
TERRE HAUTE —
A handful of Wabash Valley pharmacies have overcome what local police officials call “corporate greed” among national retail chains.
Those eight pharmacies will no longer sell pseudoephedrine products to anyone without a prescription, as of July 1.
However, retailers Walmart, Kroger, CVS and Kmart have chosen not to make a prescription a requirement.
“It’s simply greed versus good, and you could put it that simply,” said Sheriff Jon Marvel on Thursday about what he says is the underlying financial reason for retailers not joining the effort.
The prescription requirement is a step that Sgt. Chris Gallagher of the Terre Haute Police Department hopes will help curb the illegal manufacture of methamphetamine, since the only required ingredient in all recipes for a meth lab is pseudoephedrine.
On Thursday, Gallagher went with Marvel, Deputy Chief Greg Ewing and acting Police Chief Marc Eldred to participating pharmacies to deliver signs that will be posted to warn customers “This store is a lab watch participant” in the Wabash Valley Community United Against Meth.
The eight participating pharmacies are the Terre Haute Prescription Shop, the JR Pharmacies at Southland Shopping Center and at 1101 Poplar St., and at Baesler’s Market, all in Terre Haute. Also participating are the JR Pharmacy in Rockville, Lynn’s Pharmacy in Brazil, Pharmacie Shoppe in Casey, Ill., and Martinsville Pharmacy in Martinsville, Ill.
“They’re choosing to limit the things that are really damaging our community,” Gallagher said of the participating businesses.
Before meth use became an epidemic in Vigo County, he said, shootouts and high-speed chases were unusual for Terre Haute. These days, encounters with methamphetamine dealers and users commonly result in some kind of dangerous situation for police and the public.
“Meth is hurting all aspects of society,” he said.
In fact, Gallagher presented a dateline of meth-related crimes in the Wabash Valley that illustrate some of the higher-profile incidents of the past 10 years.
Among that list (see sidebar) are three multiple-victim slayings by people using methamphetamine.
This latest round in the battle against meth began a few weeks ago when pharmacies were asked to voluntarily require a prescription from people wanting to buy pseudoephedrine (or PSE) products.
“On May 20, we had a meeting with the pharmacy representatives asking them to go to prescription-only for the sale of pseudoephedrine,” Gallagher recapped during Thursday’s press conference with Marvel, Eldred and Ewing. “We asked them to begin today. Mississippi goes to prescription-only today. Oregon is already prescription-only.”
At that May meeting, the stores were asked to make a commitment to require prescriptions for any product containing pseudoephedrine as of July 1. At the time, both Walmart pharmacies in Terre Haute indicated they would do that.
“But in four days after that,” Gallagher said, “corporate Walmart took away that decision from the two local pharmacy managers.”
Gallagher said a breakdown in the effort to lessen meth’s local impact was created by the corporate retail offices whose leaders don’t live in areas affected by meth and meth-related crime.
“They live far away from here,” he said. “The local people want to do the restriction.”
At The Prescription Shop on South Seventh Street, pharmacist John Love welcomed Marvel and Eldred as he took a “lab watch” sign that he said will be posted at the pharmacy counter.
“I think it’s a good thing,” Love said. “I don’t think a lot of us realize the meth problem in the community.”
His business already limits PSE sales to prescription-only, partly for the safety of employees who were sometimes threatened by alleged meth addicts who came in to buy as much pseudoephedrine as possible. Love said he used to see cars full of people park near his building, then walk in one at a time to buy the limit for PSE, and “we knew they weren’t doing it for the right reason.”
Nearby at the JR Pharmacy in Southland Shopping Center, pharmacist Erin Haggart gladly accepted the “lab watch” sign to post at the pharmacy counter.
“The next time you have someone come in here trying to ‘smurf’ pseudoephedrine,” Gallagher said, referring to the street name for buying the drug, “you can point to this sign.”
Thursday’s action by police to combat the meth problem was not the first time local effort has brought about change at the state level.
Marvel pointed out that about seven years ago, he went to state legislators lobbying to get PSE products removed store shelves and placed in “behind-the-counter” status. The legislature did enact a state law, but it took the sting out of a Vigo County ordinance enacted earlier to limit meth production.
Incidentally, a new state law went into effect Thursday setting a limit on the quantity of PSE products that can be sold in a certain time period, but more importantly, requiring that a sign be posted by pharmacists to alert customers that it is a criminal offense to purchase products containing more than the specified amounts of PSE.
Gallagher said he thinks future Indiana legislators will eventually approve laws for prescription-only sales of PSE products.
“There’s really little doubt that this is inevitable legislation,” Gallagher said, “but we can’t wait here in Vigo County.”
Marvel, who said he has heard from many doctors who say they support the prescription requirement, and that they would call in prescriptions for their own patients without requiring a costly office visit, added one last barb toward nationwide retailers who declined to join this latest effort to combat meth.
“I think it would help if all those people with prescriptions at Walmart would say, ‘Transfer my prescriptions to …’,” he said. “That would be a financial blow that the corporate office might listen to.”
Meth-related crimes in the Wabash Valley have become rampant
Sgt. Chris Gallagher of the Terre Haute Police Department recently listed 10 crimes that document meth’s effect on the community:
May 1999 – First “Nazi” methamphetamine lab found in Vigo County. The first lab found in the count in December 1991 was not the same kind as those that are prevalent now, using the “Nazi” method to turn household chemicals and pseudoephedrine into meth.
Dec. 25, 1999 – Tim Biddy gets into a shootout with a Terre Haute Police officer.
September 2001 – A homicide in Blackhawk leads to a multi-county pursuit and fatal shootout between officers and George Schlap and Crystal Ellinger.
July 2, 2002 – Large meth lab recovered across the street from Deming Elementary. Robert Michael Heyen was arrested, and has since been arrested for and convicted of other meth offenses.
October 2005 – Chad Cottrell killed his wife and two stepdaughters in Parke County.
June 2006 – Katron Walker killed one son and attempted to kill the other one.
March 2008 – A 17-month-old child died in a house fire while her mother was at a hotel smoking methamphetamine.
March 2009 – Several people were injured, including a firefighter, during an apartment building fire that was later found to have been caused by a meth lab.
May 2009 – Lengthy vehicle pursuit of a mobile meth lab in which the anhydrous tank ruptured and began to leak. The suspect was apprehended, but four officers were exposed to high levels of anhydrous and had to be hospitalized.
June 2010 – Michael Pine was burned over 70 percent of his body when a meth lab exploded while his wife and three children were in the house. A 25-gallon anhydrous tank removed during lab cleanup would have quickly killed all five of them if it had ruptured.
Lisa Trigg can be reached at (812) 231-4254 or lisa.trigg@tribstar.com.
