Police are asking businesses to help fight methamphetamine by making it tougher for meth cooks to buy the ingredients used to make the illegal drug.
Snohomish County became the 23rd county in the state May 6 to participate in Meth Watch, which teaches business owners and employees about meth and urges them to report suspicious sales.
“This is really going to help open people’s eyes,” said Denise Miller, general manager of Donna’s truck stop in Marysville. “I think it will make a big difference.”
She joined more than 50 other business owners and employees at a Thursday breakfast sponsored by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency.
Retailers can play a key role in curbing meth production, because all the ingredients needed to make the drug can be purchased legally, Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart said.
He encouraged businesses to put up Meth Watch stickers to deter meth cooks and let their employees know about the items used to make the drug. Those include lithium batteries, propane tanks, solvents, some cold medicine and other supplies found in hardware and grocery stores.
The sheriff and the Snohomish Regional Drug Task Force also urged employees to fill out Meth Watch reports when they see customers they suspect are involved in producing meth.
In Spokane, which started a Meth Watch program in June, information from businesses has helped police shut down meth labs and arrest meth users, said Spokane County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Chan Bailey, who spoke at the breakfast.
Those tips can “be the last piece of information needed to make an arrest,” he said.
In one case, a store called police when employees saw three suspicious men buying meth-making ingredients. A deputy followed the three to 13 different stores as the men bought other meth supplies. The men then went to a motel.
“We stopped them before they were able to cook in that motel,” Bailey said.
Half of all meth lab search warrants deputies obtain involve some information from businesses, he added.
“With Meth Watch, we’ve been able to educate the cooks that we’re watching for them, and that’s forced them to change,” Bailey said.
Several businesses said they’ve changed how they sell products that can be used to make meth, in part because they’re frequently stolen.
At Safeway, cold medicine containing pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth, is kept behind the counter until customers ask for it, Safeway investigator Jack Benfield said.
Donna’s truck stop quit carrying Sudafed and Actifed after Miller discovered that a dozen packages were being stolen every week, she said.
Businesses are just one part of the communitywide effort needed to reduce meth use, said Beth Kerwin, a member of the Snohomish County Meth Action Team, which brought Meth Watch here.
“The more educated we all are about this, the more we can do about it,” Kerwin said, adding that her teenage daughter was addicted to the drug.
“I’m trying to prevent other families from going through what we went through.”
Katherine Schiffner is a reporter for The Herald in Everett.
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