Case Study: Retail Sales of Ephedrine, Vigo County Indiana

RETAIL SALES OF EPHEDRINE:

Identification of Pseudoephedrine Buying Patterns

Paper Presented at:
43rd Annual Meeting, Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences February 28 - March 4, 2006 Baltimore, Maryland

By
James Steward
P&S Consulting Company
2901 Ohio Blvd #240
Terre Haute, In. 47803
812-235-4847 / 812-249-656

ABSTRACT:

On December 22, 2004, the Vigo County Commissioners of Indiana adopted a county-wide ordinance that controls and limits the sale of products containing ephedrine. Since January of 2005, P&S Consulting Company has managed all aspects of data control associated with the Vigo County ordinance to include; compiling and sorting all retail store purchase log sheets, entering ephedrine purchase data into computerized spread sheets, analyzing buying patterns, grouping mass ephedrine purchasers and tracking mass ephedrine purchasers to their cooks. P&S Consulting provides the Vigo County Sheriff’s Department, Vigo County Drug Task Force and Terre Haute Police Department with the above information in the format of a monthly detailed informational report. From January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005, P&S Consulting entered 67,420 ephedrine transactions into a multi-state (predominately Indiana, Illinois) ephedrine purchase database. The results of analyzing mass ephedrine purchase data have revealed definable “precursor” buying patterns and sub-group of ephedrine buyers. This information will be useful for all law enforcement in fighting the war on meth.

OVERVIEWOn December 22, 2004, Vigo County Commissioners voted 3-0 to adopt a county-wide ordinance that controls the sale of products containing ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, ephedrine hydrochloride, pseudoephedrine hydrochloride, pseudoephedrine sulfate or phenylpropanolamine. These ephedrine based products, if purchased in large quantities, can be used to make illegal methamphetamine.

Vigo County Sheriff, Jon Marvel, was the driving force behind the county ordinance. The Vigo County ordinance was the first and only one of its kind in Indiana. The purpose of the ordinance is to assist law enforcement in identifying people who are buying mass quantities of ephedrine products to make illegal methamphetamine. The ordinance requires county retailers who sell ephedrine based products to obtain a permit from the Vigo County Sheriff’s Department. The ordinance limits customer purchases to no more than two packages of products containing ephedrine per transaction and no more than two ephedrine products within a 7-day period. The retailer must obtain picture identification from the purchaser along with name and address at the point of purchase. Retailers must record the obtained information on a Sheriff’s Department Log sheet provided to the retailers. The retailers must submit all log sheets to the County Prosecutor's Office by the first day of each month (5-business day grace period). The penalty for retailers failing to get a permit is $250 per day and any violation of the county ordinance is $2,500 per day.
Since January of 2005, P&S Consulting Company [1] of Terre Haute has managed all ephedrine log sheet data entry, compiled all data, tracked buyers and provided informational reports to the Vigo County Sheriff’s Department and the Vigo County Drug Task Force. P&S Consulting currently tracks between 4,500 – 8,500 monthly ephedrine transactions from 74 Vigo County stores.

EPHEDRINE SALES FROM IN AND OUT-OF-VIGO COUNTY STORESThis study examines ephedrine purchase data from January 1, 2005 to December 31, 2005. Researchers examined 91,002 ephedrine transactions. About two-thirds of the data (67,420) ephedrine transactions occurred in Vigo County stores. The additional data came from out-of-county ephedrine transactions. Over 24,000 transactions of ephedrine were made in out-of-county stores by customers listing their home of residence within Vigo County.  Some transactions (6,836) were not used due to illegible or missing required information.

GROUPS AND BUYING PATTERNS
Two Groups of Cold-Medicine / Ephedrine Product Buyers

Ephedrine Eaters

Cold-Medicine Precursor Buyers

Six Buying Patterns of ViolatorsDaily Double
Predictable Smurf
Drive-Buyers
Saint Sudafed buyers
Let’s make a deal buyers
Parking-lot Pill poppers

Ephedrine Eaters GroupA new sub-group of ephedrine buyers have been found in Vigo County. A substantial group of individuals have been purchasing mass quantities of ephedrine products – not to make meth, but to ingest the product. Much like finding a new species of animal, the phenomenon of ephedrine eating addiction has very little published research. Much of the literature deals with the effects of consuming ephedrine from a medical point of view and there is no literature about the criminological use or misuse. The eating of ephedrine also creates another community problem of providing local social services and counseling help to those people who want to get help. To some, ephedrine eating addiction can be compared to the person who buys and drinks a case of beer per night, as long as they don’t drive or go out drunk in public, society doesn’t restrict you from drinking yourself to death.

Daily DoublersThere is a measurable difference between “Daily Doublers” buyers and other types of buyers. “Daily Doublers” buyers purchase product two or more times per day and rarely miss one day of buying product. The other noticeable pattern of daily double buyers is there monthly cumulative total of transactions are extremely higher than most precursor violators, by 25 to 30 transactions. This is due to the consistent two to three everyday purchases.

Why is this Important to Know? Thirty-four (34) out of the Seventy-four (74) Vigo County stores tracked are gas stations and convenience store locations [2]. These stores make up between 65 to 85% of the total monthly ephedrine transactions. The remainder of ephedrine product transactions occur in large retail chain stores or “drug stores” [3], grocery/pharmacy establishments [4] or all-purpose stores [5]. Furthermore, the majority of products purchased at gas stations and convenience stores are ephedrine tablets/pills combined with GUAIFENESIN such as the brand names; Stackers, Stingers and Mini-Thins. Conversely, the main ephedrine based products purchased at chain stores with pharmacies are branded products such as Sudafed, Actifed, or store brand equivalent where the primary active ingredient is pseudoephedrine. The ephedrine eaters group is important watch. When Sheriff Departments start to crack down on ephedrine buyers they normally see mass amounts of ephedrine products purchased at these stores. These high volume purchase patterns set off the proverbial red flags and alarms. Unfortunately, after all the issued warrants and arrests made, most Sheriffs end up with a harmless group of ephedrine product violators addicted to eating ephedrine/guaifenesin products.  This is a common mistake law enforcement first makes when enforcing precursor laws. Mass arrests of people that are, precursor law violators BUT NOT connected to manufacturing of meth[6].

Again, the main reason for the mass purchase amounts is to feed the persons addiction to eating ephedrine/guaifenesin products. The overwhelming majority of these buyers rarely make meth with the product they buy. A major reason is that the product contains guaifenesin – a waxy substance that clings to the ephedrine. Bottom line, it is extremely hard to separate guaifenesin from the ephedrine needed to make meth. According to Detective Greg Pharency of the Vigo County Drug Task Force, he has seen only two labs in eight (8) years using products containing guaifenesin. (In 8-years, Detective Greg Pharency has worked over 600 seized meth labs in Vigo County alone)

When starting an ephedrine purchase tracking program most deputies see the large quantity of repetitive sales made by these individuals and automatically start asking the prosecutor for warrants. To avoid this temptation, the sales data needs to be coded differently than other ephedrine sales data from large retail chain stores, drug stores, grocery/pharmacy establishments and all-purpose stores. If done properly, the analyst will clearly see that these buyers will rarely, if almost never purchase product from drug stores, grocery/pharmacy establishments and all-purpose stores. These buyers only frequent gas stations and convenience stores.

Cold-Medicine Precursor Buyers Group

Predictable SmurfThese buyers purchase 6 to 9 grams of cold-medicine product daily for a period of two or three days in succession, then no product purchases for three to four consecutive days. After the non-buying period is done, the buying process is then repeated. All purchases occur from Pharmacies /Groceries Stores and various thrift/dollar stores.

Why is this Important to Know?

These individuals are strongly connected to a meth cook. These are what most Drug Task Force officers call “smurfers”. The job of a smurfer is to go out on planed ephedrine buying missions, usually following a main highway or interstate and then stop at as many stores as possible along the route until the money for purchasing ephedrine products runs out. It’s important to remember these “runs” are planned in advance and money is set aside. Their ephedrine runs are fairly consistent in terms of frequency of visits to the same stores. When planning surveillance on this group of buyers, it is best to watch and trail this group for some time. The purpose of waiting and watching is to more easily put together a conspiracy warrant. Should these buyers be apprehended before a pattern is developed you may not get every smurfer working for that specific cook.

Drive-BuyersThese buyers purchases only cold-medicine tablets. In one day, they purchases 15 to 50 boxes of cold-medicine from a specific community. The objective is to stop at every store in that specific community and purchase one or two boxes of cold-medicine. The data seems to reveal that the goal of the “Drive Buyer” is to hit many stores in one community and in one day and not buy there again until 30 to 50 days have passed.

Why is this Important to Know?

These people are obviously connected to a cook. Most likely, this is the big push to accumulate as many pills as possible for a cook. Chances are these pills will be getting cooked in the next 48hrs.

Saint Sudafed buyersThese buyers are local and may be working with in the community. These buyers purchase only cold-medicine tablets. Within the local community, these buyers rarely violate precursor laws, and rarely purchase over the a State or Federal preset limit. (normally 3 grams per week or in a single transaction) However, these buyers will buy mass quantities of cold-medicine products from neighboring county stores. Hence the name St. Sudafed Buyers, they look like perfect saints in their community and stay under the radar of local law enforcement agencies. However, these buyers are not concerned with violating precursor laws outside their community of residence.

Why is this Important to Know?  

If you are only tracking your county and do not have other counties participating in tracking and using a centralized database, you have to be careful NOT to confuse these people with legitimate cold medicine buyers. These buyers will most likely hold hourly wage jobs or work in a para-professional field. These people do not want to bring attention to themselves buying cold-medicine products in their community and prefer to go only as far as the next county to buy product. It’s important to note, most state precursor laws are enforced based on the county from which the purchase occurred and not based on the county from which the buyer resides. Therefore, prosecuting this person will take some coordination. The only sure way to get this person is to get store log data from another neighboring county.

Let’s make a deal buyersThese buyers purchases only cold-medicine tablets. These buyers normally will not violate any local precursor laws or purchase over the State or Federal preset purchase limits. These buyers do have high monthly product counts (still within state law limits). These buyers will buy up to the state law milligram limit every week. These buyers stockpile the cold-medicine product to make a deal with the local cook. (Cold medicine product in exchange for a cheaper 8-ball purchase price).

Why is this Important to Know?

If you go through your booking files for the past five (5) years and look at the people booked-in for meth possession, most of these people will be your let’s make a deal buyers. Some are still serving probation. Let’s make a deal buyers do not put effort into smurfing, instead they buy a little product at a time as to not draw attention to themselves in order to get a better price for an 8-ball. The let’s make a dealer’s will be your next drive-buyers if their desire for meth increases or their money for the product decreases. From there, the next step is to become some cooks predictable smurf. Should you do a “stop and knock” at a residence, these let’s make a deal buyers will most likely lead you to a cook, especially when confronted with conspiracy to manufacture.

Parking-lot Pill poppersMuch like the “Predictable smurf” buyers, the “parking lot pill poppers” purchase cold-medicine product daily for a period of two or three days in succession, then no product purchases for three to four consecutive days. After the non-buying period is done, the buying process is then repeated. However, most of the “pill poppers” purchases are from large super-stores with large parking lots such as: Wal-Mart Super Stores, Super-Kmart’s and Super Targets. These “pill poppers” normally travel in groups of 3 to 5 people. The group of buyers takes turns entering a store, one after the other, buying products within the same 1-hour time period. After buying the cold-medicine product they come back to their car parked in the middle of a full parking-lot and pop the cold-tablets out of the packages and into Coleman camping fuel. These buyers make the “one-pot method”.

Why is this Important to Know?

When using a centralized database, you want to use a system called time, date, location analysis. These people work in large groups and are easily grouped together by the date of the purchase, time of the purchase and the location of purchase. The analysis will show purchase patterns within one-hour time on the same day at the same store. Then at the next store, the pattern repeats. All purchasing occurring within the same one-hour time period on the same day. Very easy case for the prosecutor. Remember, this group is buying pills in such a quantity that they are already trying to dispose of evidence. This group also purchases other precursor material, so, you may have a “mobile lab” on your hands.

OTHER PATTERNSJust about everyone that violated the Vigo County and State precursor laws by purchasing at pharmacies were suppliers to meth cooks. Since the logging of ephedrine products in Vigo County has gone into effect, Vigo County Jail book-in data from 2005 was analyzed. We found, people booked-in on charges of manufacturing meth were less likely to have purchased ephedrine/cold medicine products. However, most book-ins for precursor/reagents or meth possession also violated State or County precursor laws. The data seems to reveal that most meth cooks rely on a specific group of people whose only purpose is to buy mass amounts of cold-medicine.

In 2005, Vigo County made one arrest on a person that had a combination of a violations; the State’s precursor law (bought mass amounts of ephedrine product), found a working lab at the residence, and the person admitted to being an active meth cook.

Another noticeable cold-medicine buying pattern started occurring in late October, 2005. People who buy mass amounts of cold-medicine to supply meth cooks normally like to purchase boxes containing the (red in color) 96 count tablets with a 30mg or higher strength. When that’s not available they get the 48 or 24 count tablet boxes with 30mg or higher strength. In October, the same people that had been buying the 96, 48, or 24 count tablets at 30mg or higher switched to buying the 5 and 10 count (white in color) tablets at 120mg or 240mg strength. With more pharmacies stocking less of the 96 count boxes and stocking more of the 48 count boxes (a total of 1440mgs, 30mg*48) the largest milligram boxs are now the 5, 10, and 20 count time release tablets containing either 120mg or 240 mg strength tablets. The cooking method has changed.

Tablet Conversion

10 tabs @ 240mg = 2400mgs
48 tabs @ 30mg = 1440mgs
If meth heads can only buy one product at a time, they are more likely to get the largest number of mgs possible.

CONCLUSIONThe number of clandestine meth labs seized is down since inception of the Vigo County ordinance (166 labs, 2004 to 62 labs, 2005). The hope was to track mass ephedrine product transactions which would lead law enforcement to people who manufacture and sell meth, and it has. However, two unforeseen results of tracking seemed to emerge after reviewing a complete year’s worth of data;

First, the number of new suspects making ephedrine transactions have decreased from 71.9% (Mar 05) to 19.3% (Dec 05). This means that the majority of suspect ephedrine transactions are completed by repeat ordinance violators. Monthly re-offenders of the ephedrine ordinance are more easily tracked down by Vigo County Drug Task Force members than one time violators. It was original thought that once people were cited for the County or State precursor law and came to the realization that their names appeared on a tracking database – this would be the end of their buying days, not so. To the amazement of law enforcement, it is the re-offenders that keep purchasing cold-medicine. This meth addiction is so powerful that a person will still buy mass amounts of cold-medicine product in a county that tracks every single sale made by every single county store (there is nowhere to hide).

Secondly, nobody knew about the many buying patterns that this research study has uncovered. The expectation was to have some solid descriptive statistics to present to law enforcement and local media about the number of mass cold-medicine sales based on a year’s time. What we found is truly useful for all law enforcement especially when planning to serve warrants. Recently, a neighboring county executed search warrants on 11 people after Sheriff’s deputy collected and imputed 400 lines of ephedrine transactions into his computer from area convenience stores and gas stations. As it turned out, that Sheriff’s Department spent a great deal of effort tracking down 11 people who eat ephedrine products and not a one of the arrested 11 used the ephedrine product to make meth.

In closing, there are many aspects that are needed to measure the effectiveness of an ephedrine tracking ordinance such as: the number of jail bookings based on meth related charges over a year’s time, interviews and data from emergency responders such as fire and EMS on meth related calls for service, acquiring data from social service agencies, child protective services and foster care agencies on placement of meth related incidents and data from the local farm bureau about anhydrous thefts. Information and data provided by these agencies can give a better overall picture of the effectiveness of an ephedrine tracking program and Sheriff’s Department efforts in fighting meth-abuse.

[1] P&S Consulting is a criminal justice issues consulting firm. P&S is based out of Terre Haute, Indiana and has been in business as a 501 (s) corporation for 14 months. P&S specializes in Jail Data Analysis, Crime Mapping, Crime Network Analysis, and is the only company in America that conducts ephedrine tracking. P&S Consulting currently tracks ephedrine sales in 50 out of 92 Indiana Counties, 3 Illinois Counties and 4 Minnesota Counties. We are currently being considered for tracking in the States of New Hampshire and Montana.

[2] Convenience stores are retailers such as, Quick Stop, Jiffy Mini-Mart, and 7-11.
[3] Drug Stores are retailers such as, CVS, Osco, and Walgreen’s.
[4] Grocery/pharmacy establishments are retailers such as Kroger’s, Albertson’s and IGA, with a pharmacy inside the store.
[5] All-purpose stores are retailers such as Dollar General, Dollar Tree, and Dollar Stores etc...
[6] January 24, 2006, Indianapolis Star (IN); 11 held in war on meth, Arrests made after police track over-the-counter purchases, By Tania E. Lopez. “The two-month investigation, called Operation Ephedrine No. 1, tracked sales of the drugs from seven area convenience stores”.