By Greg Grisolano

ggrisolano@joplinglobe.com

A bill creating an electronic database so pharmacies and law enforcement can track the sale of medications used to make methamphetamine was signed into law Tuesday in Joplin.

“With this legislation, we make another step forward in our efforts to fight meth,” Gov. Matt Blunt said as he signed Senate Bill 724. He had ceremonial signing ceremonies in several stops across the state.

The bill creates an electronic tracking system to provide information in real time to pharmacies statewide. The Department of Health and Senior Services will coordinate the database. Blunt said the state will accept bids from outside sources to create the database. It is expected to be operational in 2009.

The law will keep in place limits on the amount of ephedrine and pseudoephedrine products that can be purchased per day.

The goal of the legislation is to cut down on meth makers jumping from place to place to purchase large quantities of pseudoephedrine, Blunt said.

Pharmacies across the state will enter each purchaser’s information as part of the sales transaction. The system will alert the seller if that purchaser is over the daily or monthly limit.

In 2005, Blunt signed anti-meth legislation that moved ephedrine and pseudoephedrine products behind pharmacy counters and required consumers to show photo identification during purchases. That legislation also required pharmacies to maintain paper logs of the purchases and to make those logs available for law-enforcement inspection.

Blunt said the concept of an electronic database also was discussed in 2005.

“It was decided at the time that we needed to make that first step in 2005, let everybody get comfortable with that,” he said. “Then we could move forward with an electronic system.”

The 2005 legislation has led to a 40 percent decrease in the number of meth-lab busts in the state, Blunt said.

“We’re eliminating the ability to produce the product. That’s the supply side,” Joplin police Chief Lane Roberts said Tuesday. “If we can reduce the demand correspondingly, then we’ll see some real success in dealing with methamphetamine.”