Officials Try To Curb Growing Meth Problem

Methamphetamine busts are skyrocketing in Mississippi and lawmakers are trying to figure out how to stop the problem. MPB’s Phoebe Judge reports.

The Mississippi Bureau of Narcotics estimates that the number of methamphetamine labs in the state has grown by 50% in the last year, leaving virtually no county in Mississippi untouched in some way by the narcotic commonly referred to as crystal meth.

“Right now it is overwhelming.”

Sergeant Rob Ennex oversees the narcotics division with the Gulfport police department,

You could double the size of my unit and we could work seven days a week on it and we would still make arrests every day. There are so many people involved in it.

Only four years ago meth lab busts had fallen by 73% in the state. That decline was seen as a direct result of the Mississippi legislature passing House Bill 607 in 2005. That bill required all pseudoephedrine tablets, a main precursor for methamphetamine, to be sold behind the counter of stores and pharmacies and regulated how many tablets could be purchased by one individual each month. Marshall Fisher, director of Mississippi’s Bureau of Narcotics says for a time the behind the counter measure was a good deterrent, but people adapted,

“Four of us can walk in and buy the minimum amount in a specific pharmacy, and we do the same thing all day long and pretty much we have alot of precursor there that can manufacture quite a bit of methamphetamine.”

Fisher says it’s clear that something needs to be done to curb the problem, and he along with the attorney general of Mississippi are discussing new legislation that would prohibit the sale of pseudoephedrine tablets anywhere but a pharmacy, or go a further by only allowing pseudoephedrine tablets to be prescribed by a doctor. Attorney General Jim Hood says he believes prevention methods are much more effective than increasing jail sentences,

“We’ve already found by that 73% percent reduction in meth lab busts by restricting the precursors that that method works, and we just have to be a little more strict on how we handle that predictor drug pseudoephedrine.”

Fisher says one of the reasons for the spike may be a result of more individuals coming into Mississippi to purchase meth from places like Louisiana. That state passed a law this summer making pseudoephedrine tables only available for purchase in a licensed pharmacy.